Here Be Dragons
by Elizabeth Carter
Summary: Book Three: Sovereign is dead, the citadel once ruins is beginning to rebuild, the Council is saved and now Shepard is faced with a new enemy, one held over from ancient days:The Collectors. She must race against time, Cerberus and the shadows of a war yet to come. This is part three of my Ashes world: a retelling of ME2. Many game elements are changed.
1. Treason

AUTHOR: Elizabeth E. Carter

TITLE: Here Be Dragons

SERIES: Mass Effect

SERIES of Books: Rising From The Ashes

PAIRING: Pragrade F Shepard / Liara & also Garrus / Tali

CATEGORY: action / romance  
RATING: M for mature

SPOILER ALERT: ME2, the books, graphic novels and now ME3 and Andromeda

SUMMARY: Sovereign is dead, the citadel in ruins the council is saved, but Shepard's task is yet unfinished. The Reapers remain a threat via their Collector agents and life is always in the balance. This is a rewrite of ME2-ME3 with quite a few changes thus it has slightly become an AU from cannon as is most fanfiction.

DISCLAIMER: Bioware owns the concept of Mass Effect and all of its characters. Sam Shepard's personality is mine. This fanfic is for entertainment and no profit what-so-ever. Also no copyright or intellectual infringement intended upon Professor Tolkien. As I have used a quite bit of his Elfish for the Asari language

And a special thank you to my wonderful beta reader.

AN: When this was first written it was written way way before the release of ME2 and then now much later of course for the development of ME3 and now ME –AI. Bear that in mind when you read the story. I have now merged canon elements back into the main body of my own story. Also there are a few odd choices our hero makes but it's for plot device only I assure you my dear readers. I will also use all ME multi-player things for our heroes and villains to use.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Chapter 1: Treason

"This is Tali'Zorah vas _Neema_ nar _Rayya_ requesting permission to dock with the _Rayya_." Tali stood behind Joker on the bridge of the ship gazing out at the hundreds of ships that made up the vast quarian flotilla.

*Our system has your ship flagged as a stolen Cerberus ship. Verify* came the traffic controller responded.

"After time adrift among open stars, along the tides of light and through the shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."

"Wow that's beautiful." Shepard whispered to Garrus who was standing at her right-hand side. He nodded in agreement. For verification codes the quarian people were definitely poetic.

*Permission granted. Welcome home, Tali'Zorah.*

Tali didn't answer that with a thank you; instead she forged ahead with procedure. "We'd like a security and quarantine team to meet us. Despite being a vessel of a Council Spectre, our ship is not clean."

*Understood.* the traffic controller responded. *Approach exterior docking cradle seventeen.*

Shepard turned to the young engineer at her side. "I have to say Tali; quarian authorization codes are very poetic."

There was a smug smile behind the faceplate. (not that anyone could see it of course, but if you know how to read quarian body language you saw the expression clear as anything.)

"Of course they are. We are more than simple alphanumerics, Shepard. Um no offence Miss N7." Tali said her voice strained to remain light despite the burden that weighted down her very slight shoulders.

"Hey I worked very hard for my alphanumeric." Shepard smiled softly back showing that no offence had been taken. "Come on

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

It was decided that only Tali, Shepard and Garrus would be the ones to board the _Rayya_. At the entrance of the docking cradle were a team of five fully armed quarian marines all garbed in matching blue and gold armored enviro-suits, a sixth man in a red enviro suit approached with a confident step. Shepard recognized this man as a fellow officer.

"Captain Kar'Danna vas _Rayya._ " Tali tipped her head in respect. She knew this man well all her life, after all this ship was her childhood home. She grew up here, but this not the homecoming Tali had once envisioned in her day-dreams. And this certainly was not the way she wanted to introduce her father to his new son-in-law.

"Captain Shepard, Tali'Zorah told me a lot about you. I wish we could be meeting under more pleasant circumstances."

"Thank you. But as for the Captain rank I'm not actually a Captain anymore. It was a very brief stint. I was forced to resign my commission within the Alliance once I became a Spectre, despite the promotion. Technically it's still Commander."

"You're the commander of the _Normandy_ , responsible for the lives aboard her. That entitles you to respect among our people. May you stand between your crew and all harm as you lead them though empty quarters of the stars."

Tali gave a glance towards Shepard, knowing the phrase though understandable would need context as it was not simply a poetic salutation.. "Keelah se'lai." The younger woman answered as tradition demanded. To Shepard she said. "It's an old ship captain's blessing, Shepard."

The Commander nodded and kept her focus on the Captain of the _Rayya_. "Tali helped the _Normandy_ crew out of many difficult situations. I'm here to return the favour."

"I understand. As the commander of the vessel she serves on your voice carries weight." Kar'Danna Said. "I wish I could do more to help, Tali. The trial requires that I be officially neutral…but I am here, if you need to talk." The tenor of his voice changed—becoming more official in both wording and pacing. "They are charging you with bringing geth into the Fleet as part of a secret project."

Tali pushed forward, shaking her head. "That's insane! I never brought active geth aboard. I only sent parts and pieces."

Shepard knew Tali had been sending parts but she never thought the pieces recovered from Illium were more than scrap. "We'll deal with that later Tali. What's our next move Captain?"

"Technically I'm under orders to place Tali under arrest pending the hearing. So…Tali you're confined to this ship until the trial is over."

"Thank you, Captain." Tali knew neither her husband nor Shepard would have allowed her incarceration. Being confined to the ship was a more than peaceful solution to what could have been a very sticky political fallout.

Kar'Danna only nodded. "Preparations got underway as soon as you arrived. The hearing is being held in the garden plaza. Good luck." He took a step back and assumed parade rest effectively ending the conversation.

The group pushed forward with Tali in the lead. They soon came upon a woman in a quarian's variant of a classic black and white pin-striping over her gray enviro-suit. By the sound of her thickly accented voice, the woman seemed far older than any of the three standing before her.

"Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ , I am glad you came. I could only delay them so long."

Tali stepped forward hugging the elder woman around her waist as she might have done when she was but a girl. "Auntie Raan." The hug was returned. As a mother would her own child.

"Shepard vas _Normandy_ , this is Admiral Shala'Raan vas _Tonbay_. She's a friend of my fathers." Tali said dropping the hug. "And this is my husband Garrus Vikarian". She paused. "Wait Raan, you called me 'vas Normandy.' That was only temporary, I am of the _Neema_!"

"I'm afraid I did Tali. The Admiralty Board moved to have you tried under that name, given your departure from the _Neema_."

As Raan spoke Tali turned, walked backwards until she was at Shepard's side with Garrus standing directly behind her. His hand automatically went to her shoulder.

"I take it being associated with a human ship is a bad sign." Shepard said more forcefully than perhaps the Spectre had intended.

Tali's voice was already broken and rose in anger "They stripped me of my ship name. That's as good as declaring me exiled already."

Raan took a step forward. "It's not over yet, Tali. You have friends who still know you as Tali'Zorah vas _Neema_ …whatever we must call you legally."

Speaking of legality, Shepard dealings with JAG were extremely limited and being a Spectre in her limited experiences were more with the enforcement part of law and order. "You're an Admiral. Does that mean you're one of the judges?"

The older woman shook her hooded head. "I'm afraid not. My history with Tali and her father forced me to recuse myself."

"I imagine Father had to do the same."

"We'll see inside Tali. For my part, I moderate and ensure that the rules of protocol are followed, but I have no vote in the judgment."

"I guess we should get started. Does Tali have a defence counselor, someone who speaks for her side?" Shepard asked.

A nod this time. "Indeed, she does…Captain Shepard. She is part of your crew now, recognized by quarian law." Raan raised up her index finger. "And remember, an accused is always represented by his or her ship's captain."

Both Shepard and Tali looked at one another. "So…er…you would actually speak for my defense."

"I'll so everything in my power to help you Tali." Shepard vowed.

There was a smile behind the purple faceplate. "Thank you, Shepard. I could not ask for a better counselor." Tali had full confidence and faith in her Commander. Shepard never once let her down in the entire time she had known the human. Tali's once gave evidence in Shepard's favour to seek justice over the rogue Spectre Saren, now it seemed the tables are turned.

"Our legal rules are simple." Raan brought the companions' attention back to her "There are no legal tricks or political loopholes for you to worry about. Present the truth as best you can. It will have to be enough. Now come. I promised that I would not delay you."

The _Neema's_ hydroponics garden was held a three-fold purpose, one of course was for food production the other like was as an oxygen factory, It was the same on most ships that were cruiser class or larger. And the last was perhaps a byproduct as a park and place of meditation and relaxation. A place to hold significant meetings of the Flotilla.

The center of the atrium was the forum; the seating was horseshoe shaped surrounding a two-tier platform. On the larger of the two stood three admirals a woman and two men. They glanced to Tali and her entourage, watching her as she took the stand opposite of the podiums.

Shepard's mind reflected back to the Citadel and that first hearing with the Council. They didn't have to look as high up to meet the eyes of the Admirals as she had to with the Council but the message was the same, we are the authority you must look up to. Above the three Raan took her position on the smaller podium behind the primary platform. And so the authority had a voice above them.

There was no preamble; no bailiff calling the court into attention, Raan did that herself.

"This conclave is brought to order. Blessed are the ancestors who kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season, Keelah se'lai."

The gathered answered as one as if in pray at a temple. "Keelah se'lai."

"The accused Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ has come with her captain to defend herself against the charge of treason.

A tall male in the middle of the trio of Admirals garbed in a salmon colored suit raised his hand "Objection! A human has no business being involved in such a sensitive military matter!"

From behind came a very smug response. "Then you should have not declared Tali crew of the _Normandy_ , Admiral Koris. By right as Tali's captain, Shepard must stay." Koris whipped his head around glaring behind his own lavender face plate. He had just been smacked down, hard.

Koris shook his head. "Objection withdrawn." He mustered enough dignity to save what little face he had left.

"Raan continued as if she had not been interrupted. "Shepard vas _Normandy_ , your crew member Tali'Zorah stands accused of reason. Will you speak for her?"

Shepard only needed a moment to think her next play. She had to remind not only the Admiralty but the gathered body of quarians of Tali's true connection to the Fleet—of her _true_ name.

"If it helps Tali, I will. But in her heart, she remains Tali'Zorah vas _Neema_ , a proud member of the Migrant Fleet. I regret that her captain is forbidden to stand at her side today…"

Koris's former scolding was all but forgotten or rather perhaps because of it he a held defiant step forward his grudge-filled voice issuing the glare that was most assuredly expressed upon a face none could see. "Nobody has been forbidden from anything! It is a simple…"

Only now did the male on the left hand of Koris intervene. "Lie to them if you must, Zaal'Koris, but don't lie to me and expect me to stay silent! The human is right!"

"Admirals, please. Shepard's willingness to represent Tali'Zorah in this hearing is appreciated." Raan commanded. "Tali, you are accused of brining active geth to the Migrant Fleet. What say you?"

It was not Tali who answered but Shepard. "How could Tali have brought active geth to the Fleet while serving on the _Normandy_?"

"To clarify, Shepard, Tali isn't accused of bringing back entire units, only parts that could spontaneously reactivate." Said the only other female Admiral on the Board, there was no recognition of who she was in Tali's stance. .

"But I would never send active geth to the fleet." Tali responded ringing her hands in nervousness. "Everything I sent was disabled and harmless!"

"Then explain how geth sealed the lab ship where your father was working!" Koris tossed out accusingly. His words stirred the courtroom into jabbering like riled pyjacks.

"What are you talking about? What happened?" Tali was astounded.

It was Gerrel who answered. "As far as we can tell, Tali, the geth have killed everyone on the _Alarei_ …. your father included."

"WHAT!? Oh Keelah…." Tali's heart rate spiked. The news slammed down hard, her father…no! Keelah no…

Shepard took charge. "I appreciate the need for this trial, Admirals, but right now our first concern must be the safety of the Migrant Fleet. The _Normandy_ stands ready to assist in whatever capacity necessary."

"Thank you." responded Raan. "Quarian strike teams have attempted to retake the ship, so far without success."

Tali turned swiftly to look her commander dead in the eye. "Shepard, we have to take back the _Alarei_!" she pleaded, barely holding back the dread in her voice from spilling out.

"Safest course would be to simply destroy the ship. But if you are looking for an honorable death instead of exile…." Koris started tauntingly…

"I'm looking for my father you bosh'tet!" Tali snarled back.

"You intend to retake the _Alarei_ from the geth?" Once more Raan intervened. "This procedure is extremely dangerous."

Shepard didn't hesitate with her answer. "With your permission, Admirals, yes. The good of the Fleet must come first…and Tali needs to find her father."

"Agreed. And if you die on this mission Tali, we will see that your name is cleared of these charges." Gerrel said. His tone was more apologetic.

But Koris was having none of it. He wanted his pound of flesh. The need to see Tali 'hang' was all but apparent. "We can discuss that later."

"Then it is decided. You will attempt to retake the _Alarei_ you are hereby given leave to depart the _Rayya_. A shuttle will be waiting at the secondary docking hanger. Be safe Tali. This hearing will resume upon you return or upon the determination that you have been killed in action."

Tali looked towards Raan, dropped her eyes to the Admirals then turned back to Shepard and her husband. At this moment, all she wanted to do was to crawl into Garrus's arms and stay there.

She managed to stay on her feet and not waver despite everything falling down around her. But she had two of the three people she trusted most in this galaxy. They gathered around her, offering their strength and comfort. Garrus held her, not caring who saw them.

"We've got this Tali." he whispered

Tali didn't react to Garrus directly, rather she turned to best friend. "Thank you for agreeing to take back the _Alarei_ , Shepard. The Admirals sounded sure that my father is already dead, but…" She sighed heavily. "I don't know. We won't know anything until we get there."

"How are you holding up?" Shepard voice became warm filled with concern. "They just threw a lot of fire at you, even before telling you about your father."

"I knew this would be bad, but I guess you're never really prepared to be charged with treason." Another sigh. "And my father…. I don't know. He could still be alive. They don't know for certain that he's dead. I just don't know Shepard. And I need to find out."

Shepard reached out at the same time Garrus die, each placing a hand upon an opposite shoulder. For a moment, the three of them stood still just taking the much-needed moment to gather thoughts.

"Is there anyone we should talk to before we go?" asked Shepard.

"We can talk with the Admirals. It might help us to see what their viewpoints are."

Garrus nodded n agreement. "Getting a better insight on them is a good idea. Though it's pretty clear where that bosh'tet Koris stands. Love to crack that smug bastard's faceplate in and let the germs do the rest."

Tali chucked a dry sort of laugh with no turn humor in it. "Tempting but no."

"Aw I never get to have any fun."

"I doubt we'll change anyone's mind by talking to them privately. Faceplate smashing or not."

"Let's go." Shepard said.

"Right the sooner we get the _Alarei_ , the sooner we'll know what happened."

"Shepard, getting to the _Alarei_ is paramount but we many not get another opportunity to talk to the admirals before we return. We treat them like suspects, or informants but we tap the source before it dries up."

"Good to see your days in C-Sec are paying off. Alright, we hit them. "

"Too bad there's no window to toss their sorry asses out of if they don't cooperate." Garrus's mandibles flickered in a turian smile. "What was it you said to that guy you pushed out of that skyscraper back on Illium? 'There are two ways down: coach or express.'"

"Tempting to do that to Koris guy but overall that's not going to be very helpful to exonerate Tali." Shepard shook her head. "Who do you want to talk to first, Tali?"

"I know exactly who I want to talk to." there was frozen venom in the younger woman's voice. She pushed out of Garrus's hold and stormed across the compound directly to where Raan was standing speaking with one of her aides.

As soon as the aide saw Tali, she backed off swiftly deciding discretion was the better part of valor.

"You set me up!" Tali accused hotly. "You told Captain Danna not say anything. I don't get to hear that my father may be dead until I'm in the trial! Why!?"

"The Admirals needed to hear the shock in your voice, Tali. Otherwise, they might not have let you try to take the _Alarei_." Raan answered softly yet not defensively. "That is your best chance at recovering evidence that can exonerate you. I'm sorry. We cannot afford sensitively, Tali."

"I know you're trying to help her admiral, but that was over the line." Shepard snapped.

"You went too far." Garrus snarled at the same time.

Raan turned to both of them, her own frustration leaked in., "She has nobody else to speak for her, Shepard. I am doing everything in my power. That's what her father would have wanted."

"Don't say it like that!" Tali was still pissed. No way she was letting her Auntie off the hook. "He could still be alive on that ship!"

Raan didn't refute it. "You should get to the _Alarei_ soon. Is there anything else I can tell you?"

"What can you tell us about the _Alarei_." Garrus said not bothering to cover up the coldness he felt towards this woman who was supposedly Tali's family. But knowing is half the battle. The more they knew about the battle field the better their chances of success in retaking the ship.

"Not much I'm, afraid. Rael'Zorah only said that he was researching new defense technology."

"He told me that he only needed any geth parts or pieces I found. I assumed he was testing weapons on geth components."

"We knew nothing until the _Alarei_ sent a distress signal, then went dark. We didn't even know about the geth until a boarding team was attacked."

"You're saying there's no data about the inside of the ship." This came from Shepard.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. The marines who survived and escaped saw bodies in the halls. We must assume the worst."

"No, we don't." Tali retorted.

Shepard decided on another approach, Tali needed a moment to collect her thoughts and she still needed insight on the trial. Anything she could use to defend her friend and crewmate…her wife's Trusted.

"How long have you known Tali's father?"

"Since before Rael became an admiral. Twenty-five or thirty years, I'd guess." Raan's voice became softer—reminiscent. "I was there when Tali was born. Her mother and I synched our suits so we could be in the same open air room. I was sick for a week but it was worth it. I was the one that took Tali from her mother and put her in the bubble. She cried so hard."

This floored the Spectre. "I don't understand. You put children in bubbles?"

"Environmental suits. It's a step between relying on the mother's immune system through nursing and getting a suit of your own." Raan explained.

Garrus was still trying to wrap his head around it. Tali had once tried to explain it to him, wondering if a bubble for their hybrid child would be necessary or not due to his DNA in mix they would be free of it. Tali had once told him in their many private moments she had hoped a bubble wasn't going to be necessary for their child.

Shepard on the other hand had no prier knowledge of such a thing. To her it was more than a little alien. She tried to image what life would be like for little Zia and Han in side bubbles. And she could not fathom not being able to cuddle her daughters once they were born. A greater respect for Tali's hardship in a suit went up ten-fold in that moment. Was it any wonder quarians were a very social people due to their physical isolation?

Tali tired to explain just as she had with Garrus. It wasn't as though parents could not hold their children. It wasn't as horrible as it sounded. "Bubbles let parents take their children out of the clean rooms safely. We don't wear our suits until adolescence."

"There is a celebration when a child gets her first suit. It's a coming of age." Raan added.

"Not hearing much about Rael's involvement in Tali's life." Garrus said or rather accused. Not that he had much to go on. To say his relationship with his father was strained was being generous. Hell, Shepard had it worse. One father could never acknowledge her as his own and the other resented her creation.

"It's difficult to explain. I shouldn't…"

"It's okay Aunt Shala., Garrus is my husband. And I told Shepard about my father." Tali said "There are no secrets among shipmates or …family. I will be an Auntie to Shepard and Liara daughters. And she will be to mine…. once" she looked over to Garrus, grabbed his hand and squeezed, "we have one."

"Rael was…committed to the quarian cause. That didn't leave him a lot of time for family." Raan started. "He wanted to give Tali and her mother the homeworld…or a strong Fleet, at least. That was how he showed his love. He was proud of you Tali. He might never have said it to you, but I know him. And he was proud."

Tali didn't say anything. What was there to say?

Once more Shepard took another turn in her questioning this time directly to the center of the trial. "What kind of evidence will carry weight with the other Admirals?"

Raan answered not to Shepard but rather the much younger quarian woman. "Tali, you admitted sending geth parts to your father for his project."

"Yes. But never anything that could have come back online on its own. I took every possible precaution." Tali became defensive once more.

"Then find records of your shipments and the equipment. Something that proves you were careful. Something that proves that this is all just a terrible accident that nobody could have foreseen."

"Will the others accept that? Admiral Koris seems to want Tali's blood not proof of her innocence. More than that, isn't there? There seems to be some other arguments going on amongst the Admirals." Shepard forged ahead.

"You caught that. Yes, the geth presence makes this a touchy issue. The Admiralty Board is trying to determine whether to focus on colonial development… or attempt to retake the homeworld."

"You're thinking of war? With the geth?" Tali didn't even trying to hide her outrage or surprise.

"I'm not, Tali. But the others are."

"That's a bad idea." Garrus shook his head, his mandibles flared at the idiocy of it all.

"I know the Migrant Fleet is formidable, but even you can't take on the geth." Shepard chided.

Raan turned away from the trio for moment so that she might pace the small area. "We grow tired of wandering the stars, Shepard. We want our world back. We have paid enough for our mistakes." With her back still towards the other Raan continued her narrative. "I'm not giving you my opinion. I am telling you the way the wind is blowing.

"The geth situation is not as simple as you think." Shepard said.

"I don't think the other Admirals would care about that. They want the homeworld back and they want the geth destroyed."

"Shala, don't you want us to retake the homeworld?" Tali pressed. She sure as hell did. She wanted her child to run on the plains of Rannoch, to know its skies, to breathe its air, to smell its flowers. She wanted it.

"I don't think we can, Tali" Raan answered pessimistically. "But it might not be about what I think."

Having confronted Raan Tali felt marginally better. Now was time to face the rest of the Admiralty but where to start. Tali knew where Koris stood; talking to him would be last. Gerrel her father's closest friend could wait as well for she could gamble on very short odds of where he stood. That left the one Admiral Tali was completely unfamiliar with.

Tali scarcely got within six paces when the woman in a black enviro-suit turned "Tali'Zorah. Given the circumstances are you certain that speaking to me is appropriate?" Xen sounded as she had walked into pile of varren shit, given that the only hound in the area was back on the Normandy that was unlikely.

"I'm looking for information about the _Alarei_. I don't intend to bribe you in the middle of the plaza, Admiral." Tali

"Pft this whole trial is a farce born of fear." Xen folded her arms over her chest and leaned her weight upon her back foot.

"Sounds like your ideas about the geth differ from the others."

"Yes. At least on the Admiralty Board. Han'Gerrel sees an enemy that must be crushed. Zaal'Koris would run away and hind on some new colony world. Shala'Raan is still undecided. I had thought Rael to be firmly in Han's camp, but if his experiments were on active geth perhaps we have ideas in common."

That could change this…" If we don't find Rael alive on the Alarei what do you think will happen?" Subtlety was never one of Shepard stronger skill-sets but she had to give it a try.

Xen answered evenly. "The power balance will be disrupted. Has nosed a vote for his foolish and self-destructive war. That would favour peace then as Shala'Raan is careful to risk her own neck. but if the admiral replacing Rael agrees with me, then could become very exciting."

"You think support experimenting on living creatures?" Shepard pushed.

Rael should have felt no more guilt experimenting on geth than I did while performing surgery on a childhood toy." Only now did the older quarian unfold her hands as they became more animated as she spoke.

"Okay that's a little creepy." Garrus muttered under his breath.

"The fact you performed surgery on your childhood toys explains a great deal, Admiral." Tali said more boldly, and mildly disturbed.

Xen shook her head and turned away from the trio. "A Ship travels faster than I can. With the right programming, it can choose locations even defend itself when attacked. But it is just a machine." She turned, "It was built for the sole purpose of serving its masters. And it can be dismantled when ever its master desires."

So that's her game…Shepard chewed on the admiral's words. "If you're not interested in this trial, why not recuse yourself?"

Once more defiant and challenging Xen folded her arms much like Shepard did when she spoke to others. Power and defiance—a test of strength. "And let that aging warship Han'Gerrel and the cowardly Zaal'Koris be ones to chart this course. I think not." Xen shook her head.

"The broader purpose underlying the trial is too important. Tali'Zorah is only peripherally related. No offense intended." she glanced across at the younger woman.

"Then what is the purpose of this trial, Admiral?"

"To determine whether quarians should fear their past mistakes or reclaim their glory using our natural affinity for artificial intelligence."

Once more Shepard foraged ahead. "So, the only reason you care about this is because Rael might have learned something valuable form the geth?"

Xen became more animated. "Indeed. If he has, then even in this accident we may find something worthwhile."

"You want to create new AIs?" Tali was astonished.

"No Tali'Zorah. I want to return the geth to the control of their rightful masters," Xen uplifted her arms so that her body resembled a 'T' "the quarian race."

"And if Rael didn't find the answers you want." Garrus pressed, his old C-Sec interrogation training came forward.

"Then it is a tragic mistake born of poor planning. Again, no trial necessary."

"Can you tell me anything about the _Alarei_?" Shepard plowed ahead locking down the knowledge that this trial was indeed farcical and had nothing to do with Tali..

"Little. We detected several communication signatures before the geth jammed the comm systems. Given the likely networked intelligence requirement for taking over a ship, expect between ten and fifty units."

Tali turned to Shepard. "Then this can't have anything to do with me. I only sent parts and pieces, and certainly not enough to make that many geth."

So if not from Tali where then did Rael'Zorah get them all? But something about Xen's ideas about the geth and giving back the glory to the quarian people was something that could be used in Tali's defense.

"Good talking with you, Admiral." Shepard said feeling that they had exhausted all the information they were likely to get out of Xen.

That left Gerrel and Koris. The latter Shepard was most definitely not looking forward to talking to. She was with Garrus on that one. Restraining herself from cracking open his faceplate would take every fibre of her self-control that she could muster.

As they passed the greens of the plaza Tali stopped short and sprinted to a Marine in a maroon hardsuit. "Kal'Reegar!" She smiled. "I'm happy to see you. But I thought you were on Haestrom protecting the team, what are you doing here?"

"When I heard about the trial I came back. I wanted to speak to the Board on your behalf."

Garrus's jealously rose like a firebrand over hot coals but simmered from white-hot to a dull orange. Still he placed a possessive hand on his wife's shoulder showing the other male this woman was spoken for.

"That's good of you."

Tali turned her head so she might look at her husband. "I told you about Kal. We were in training together. He was two years ahead of me in his Pilgrimage."

"I served her and she deserves better than what she's getting." Kal said ignoring Garrus challenge, but not his closeness to the young woman he at one time desired to court.

"Thanks, Kal." Tali was truly touched.

He bowed his head." Just stating the facts, Ma'am."

"Have you had any luck talking to the Admiralty Board?" Shepard said, also ignoring Garrus' rising testosterone. She knew a good man when she saw one. And Kal seemed like one of the best. Tali once spoke at length about him, how she truly enjoyed his company. If not for Garrus, the Spectre might have thought Tali had had a relationship with the marine. Perhaps they had before she left on her Pilgrimage.

"Admiral Raan asked my opinion about the geth, since I'd fought them on Haestrom." Kal paced with his hands behind his back in a very typical militaristic style. "She and Gerrel are hoping you'll kill a bunch of geth to get the crowd on your side, then find evidence to clear your name.

"They were hesitant, but well, you don't have many other options ma'am. I recommended getting you onto the Alarei. I hope you can handle it. With a Spectre at your side I am confident you will."

"You did the right thing. Thank you." Tali tipped her head. She seemed to take a pause before speaking her next words. Haestrom…had she returned to the Fleet after the events of Saren, Tali would have been slated to lead that mission. As it happened fate or destiny had another path for her.

"Kal, the team on Haestrom were studying dark energy, weren't they? What did they find?"

One might have thought it strange for Tali to venture into this line of thought considering the unknown status of her father and her pending trial. But that was the brilliance of a savant. Her mind was quite capable of targeting or even fixating on any number of subject matter. "I know that the sun was anomaly."

"It was. Damnedest thing. It's just like they said. No way the sun on Haestrom should have been acting that way."

"So that dark energy theory was right? That's troubling."

"I really can't comment on that ma'am. I just shoot things."

Garrus was getting more and more frustrated, because he really liked this guy. If he hadn't had a past with his wife, he knew he and Kal could hit off. Bet the guy was a damned fine sniper too. Spirits. He wanted to hate this guy.

"I know that the sun shorted out everything, way too much radiation. The sun's getting old…only it's not. Dark energy. It's reducing the mass of the star's interior. Techs are worried."

"You said the geth swarmed the place." Garrus said. "You think they are responsible for what's happening to Haestrom's sun?"

"Keelah, I hope not. If they can screw up a star, our chances in a war are even worse than I thought."

"I don't think this is geth. It would take massive time and resources to affect a star like this, deliberately. It's too ineffective to be a weapon, and even the geth wouldn't destroy a useful star system. Besides they didn't show up until the team did," Tali said.

"Humph. I hope you're right ma'am. Synthetic bastards are bad enough as it is." Kal responded.

"What does that dark energy build up mean? Is it something we have to worry about." This was not the first-time dark energy has been a hot topic. On Illium Gina Parasini spoke of it as she knew that was an influx of people looking into it as well as hackers digging for anything dealing with dark energy. As an information broker, Liara spoke of how many of her clients have pursued the issue. It seemed dark energy was on everyone's lips.

Dark energy and the geth wasn't what came to the Spectre's mind. Dark energy and the Reapers—now that was something she could believe. Thing is did they reap because of the rise and flux of its influence upon star systems or were they the cause of it?

"Sorry Shepard, I don't what it means. Just that it has the scientists worried."

Shepard looked to Tali and knew by body language alone that worry was awash on the young quarian's face as well.

"Hopefully it's an isolated phenomenon…if dark energy can destabilize solar material…" she walked past the others paused and turned back. "Probably not something to worry about now, but resources in the galaxy are rare enough as it is without stars suddenly going dead."

"Sometimes I think flying around in the Fleet without a planet of our own is a good idea." Kal responded gaining a head nod from Garrus.

"With your immune systems, it can't be easy for quarians to fight in a war. You'd lose more people to infection than injury"

"We can't afford a frontline attack that's for sure. Have to fight smart-ideally from orbit."

Almost affronted Tali spoke up. "We do have stockpiles of antibiotics. It's not as though everyone will die from a single shot."

"No Shepard's right. You've only seen our strike ops, Tali. Don't have all the face equipment in a frontline fight. Supplies get strained, things get ugly fast."

Garrus was truly likening this guy. Damn it. "We should get going." he blurted out drawing the women's attention to him and away from Kal.

Kal inclined his head a little. Acknowledging the wanting to leave for what it was. "Good luck on the Alarei. Stay safe out there."

Shepard nodded and Tali placed a hand on the other quarians shoulder. "Thank you Kal, for everything."

"Anytime ma'am."

Crossing the grounds of the plaza the voices of the quarians within the audience could be heard. Some good. Some not so good.

"Tali and her father are out of control. This is on their heads."

"Even during her own trial, Tali's first thought is to the Fleet."

"If Tali is stuck with a human arbiter, at least its one that can speak well."

"It will take more than pretty words to sway the courts."

"If anyone can retake the _Alarei_ , it's Tali'Zorah."

The trio ignored them all. Gerrel and Koris were still left to speak with. If they could gain the same sort of insight on their views of the trial or the geth, then the greater foothold Shepard had in defending Tali against what Xen had so eloquently put- a farce.

Giving their farewell. Three decided now was the time to take to Gerrel and after him the more seemingly odious of the pair, Zoris. Of the later Tali was most definitely not looking forward to. Though he was never 'Uncle' he might as well have been given his close friendship to her father, Tali knew how to talk to Gerrel. She even liked the old man. It was why she had gifted him with the geth nodes as part of her pilgrimage. she was to be a member of the _Neema_ , before all of this occurred: not just the events surrounding the Collectors but her marriage to Garrus as well.

As soon as the trio approached the Admiral too a step forward. His gray and white suit was an odd contrast given the greenery of the gardens and at the same time it made him stand out even amongst the other admirals. "Tali, I'm glad Admiral Raan got you leave to take the Alarei. Hopefully you will find something to clear your name."

Having the foreknowledge of his want to retake Rannoch and his interest in ways to destroy the geth it was more than apparent that evidence to exonerate Tali was not all he hoped the trio would find.

"I'm more concerned with finding my father, Admiral." Tali said a little more forcefully.

"I wish you luck. Blow up some geth on your way. And you're Captain Shepard?" He turned to the only human in the party. "Han'Gerrel vas _Neema_." there was a smile in the old man's voice. "You got Admiral Koris backing up worse than a krogan toilet. Glad to see Tali's captain knows how to handle a courtroom."

"I'm just here to help Tali, Admiral." Shepard remarked.

"I'm glad someone is."

"You believe I'm innocent, don't you Admiral?" Tali almost sounded optimistic—dare she be hopeful?

"I know you and your father. You've put too much of yourselves into this fleet to do anything to jeopardize our safety. And you're both smart enough not to make mistakes like the ones they're saying you made."

Shepard frowned. 'They'? Who is this mysterious they? Raan and Gerrel both think Tali is innocent, hell so does Xen. Was Koris a 'They' all by himself?

"Can you tell me anything about the _Alarei_?" Shepard asked the now familiar question.

"Nothing good. We sent some of our best marines into that hellhole. Damn few of them made it back. Whatever Rael was doing it blew up in his face. The ship is crawling with geth. Don't go in expecting survivors." he was being honest.

Tali wasn't going to accept that prognosis. "Admiral! My father—your friend is on that ship!"

"I know that, Tali. But if Shala hadn't suggested you might volunteer, we'd already have destroyed the Alarei. That's were we stand."

Before Tali could mount a defense, Shepard dodged in with a feint of her own. She needed Gerrel off balance if she was to glean any inside info on the others. "What can you tell me about the other admirals? Anything that might help me change their minds about Tali?"

"The one you didn't recognize Tali is Admiral Xen. She's on the fence. She takes Fleet safety very seriously." Gerrel answered, shifting gears as easily as Shepard. "On the other hand, she's always been in favour of studying the geth. Hopefully she sees the benefits of Rael's research

"Admiral Koris is the same whining suit-wetter he has always been."

"You disagree with Admiral's Koris policies, I'm guessing. Or is it personal?"

"The man is a damned geth apologist. Thinks we were wrong to try and destroy them centuries ago." Gerrel flipped his hand was if to wave away a foul smelling flatulent odour that clung to the air. "He wants to search for a new colony possibilities instead of taking back the homeworld. Any research on the geth makes him angry. You don't have much of a chance with him, I'm afraid."

 _Good to know._ Shepard thought to herself. "You and Tali's father go back a long way?" Once more to shifting gears. Having the knowledge of what a man thinks of his friends close or otherwise once he thinks they are dead tells you a lot about his character. To win this trial Shepard needed all the insight she could harvest.

Gerrel's voce became one of reminiscence. "We served together on the gunship _Yaska_ during a bad batarian raid. We were just kids, serving pre-Pilgrimage as trainees. A crew of ten, and six were dead. Kinetic barriers were down. Rael and I were alone on the bridge, and the batarians had drawn off a tramp freighter."

"Did you save the freighter?" Shepard pressed for details. Anyone putting down batarian pirate slavers was going up in estimation in her books.

"Our ship was under orders to hold position. But Rael looked at me and said. 'We're under age. They can't charge us for breaking formation.' he took the helm, I took weapons, and we brought that freighter back. The crew called us heroes. The brass called us idiots. They slapped medals to our suits, then kicked us off to Pilgrimage a bit earlier than usual. That's Rael for you."

"Sounds like we're dealing with more politics than just Tali bringing back equipment." Shepard said after soaking in the details of both Rael and Gerrel's demeanour.

The man shrugged. "Pft. You noticed that, did you? Tali's father wasn't just running weapons tests on the geth for fun. He was looking for something to give us an edge to attack the geth in a full-scale war."

"I know Father wanted to retake the homeworld someday, but are we that close?"

Another shrug. "I don't know, kid. We almost have the votes. We just need to give people hope for victory."

"I hope the quarian people find someplace sage to live, Admiral, but it sounds like you're playing with fire." Shepard shook her head. War with the geth was insanity, especially with the Reaper threat lurking in dark space. Didn't they realize this?

"We're too comfortable now, Shepard. We've got the largest fleet in the galaxy, and we just ride around doing nothing."

"We might need that fleet to help fight the Reapers; Admiral." Tali said what was on the tip of Shepard's tongue.

"Then we need a world to shelter our noncombatants while we do it!" He sighed. "And right now the only geth I am worried about are the ones infecting the Alarei." he took a step forward and placed a parental hand on Tali's shoulder. "Hang in there kid."

"Thanks Admiral."

That left one more Admiral to contend with. This one no one was looking forward to.

As soon as Tali and Shepard approached he all but sneered behind his mask. "Judging by your ability to play to a crowd, human, I've done Tali a favour stripping 'vas Neema' from her name."

"Commander Shepard this is Admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib-Qwib." Tali turned and quickly added. "Do not ask about the name."

"I take no pleasure in this Tali, truly. But you have gravely endangered and dishonored our fleet.

In Shepard's eyes this swit needed a good cuffing. Mocking his ship name…well-why not? "You have a ship called the _Qwib-Qwib_? Seriously?"

Tali face-palmed and muttered. "Oh here we go…"

"Our people during difficult periods, purchased pre-owned vessels from other cultures! And have on occasion had difficulty altering the ships registry information. The citizens of these foreign named ships have borne the stigma of these names with grace and honour."

"Like you have? If it bothers you, maybe you should find another ship."

"I have occasionally entered the idea of requesting a transfer. Something like a nice respectable name like the _Defrahnz_ or the _Iktomi._ But I am proud of the _Qwib-Qwib_ , and I will not flee because of petty insults."

"No, you just stoop to strip others of their names just because you have a dumbass name right?" Garrus snapped outright challenging the other male. "You know the _Iktomi_ is close to the human word vasectomy. You know the procedure where they cut your testicles off."

Koris was about to retaliate to the venom within the turian's words when Shepard swiftly intervened.

"What can you tell me about the _Alarei_?" Shepard turned the conversation around before they were all tossed into the brig for insubordination or whatever trumped up bullshit charges Admiral _Qwib-Qwib_ could dream up.

"Only that you should have let us destroy it." Koris answered. "When we find the evidence of that Tali and her father did there, any hope of convincing the other admirals will die."

 _You son-of-bitch._ Shepard's hind brain roared. _Tell us again you find no pleasure in wanting to burn Tali at the stake. You have such a fucking hard on to see it happen…Of course Garrus egging him on didn't help._

Tali took a battle-ready stance, "I did not bring active Geth to the Alarei, Admiral! I know how dangerous that would be! I only brought pieces!" she shouted back at him.

"A captured ship with its crew slaughtered by living beings in pain, belies your argument." he tossed back at her.

"What exactly is your problem with my shipmate, Admiral?" Shepard demanded. She had had enough. Qwib-Qwib just stepped over the line. It took every ounce of her will not to gut punch the asshole. "Sounds to me you want Zorah blood. if you can't get Rael's you'll take Tali. Despite the fact she has no idea about whatever experiments her father was performing."

"I respect Tali immensely. Her actions against Saren are to be lauded." he turned his back to them and turned his gaze toward Gerrel. "But like her father, she wants nothing but the destruction of the geth…the people we created. The people we wronged."

"The geth drove us from our homeworld" Tali's voice was still fever pitched.

"Of course, they did." Koris remained as belittling as ever. "We tried to kill them."

"You and the other admirals appear to have some disagreement beyond Tali's trial."

"You are correct. Tali, I apologize for it being brought into your proceedings. The other admirals are pushing for war. Rael'Zorah was researching new weapons against the geth. They would see our fleet destroyed in the skies over our homeworld rather than find a new colony and adapt!" only in the last part did his condescending tone raise in heated resentment.

"Can the quarians coexist with the geth after all your history?" Shepard queried.

The man shrugged. "I don't know but we all deserve to find out. They are our children, Shepard. We have all done horrible things to each other, but it has to end for both our sakes."

Shepard was loath to agree with the odious man just on printable of holding a grudge. But the war with the geth was a horrible idea right now. Just when Shepard found herself agreeing with Koris the asshole part of him raised its head again.

"This is why I cannot sanction whatever experiments you helped _enable_ Tali'Zorah. knowledge of what he was doing on the _Alarei_ or not your actions allowed Rael to perform them. I believe this message must be sent."

"I understand Admiral, I do not agree with you but I understand."

 _I won't let you take her head, even if it's exiling to make your point Qwib-Qwib._ Shepard vowed. _I'll shove that crow-pie so far down your throat your grandkids will be crapping feathers._

"We should move on." Shepard said. _Before Garrus and I send a message about messing with our girl._ Came an unspoken after thought.

"Goodbye Tali'Zorah. Be well." he almost sounded sincere

"I'm surprised to hear you say that." Tali scoffed. She wasn't the only one not taking him seriously.

"I don't hate you Tali. I just think you and your father's plans for war are wrong."

"I never planned to go to war Admiral. I plan to survive. And if my fathers study can help us against the geth, it's more than possible they can help us against the Reaper constructs." Tali retorted hotly.

"Unless you want us to play nice with them too. After all they gotta be someone's children too, right?" Garrus growled. "Should we roll over for every AI that wants to slaughter us, put our corpses on dragon's teeth and turn us into undead monsters?"

"Garrus-not helping. Don't antagonize the Admirals. He already wants to crucify Tali, let's not hand him the nails." Shepard grabbed the Archangel's arm. For in that moment that was exactly who her Trusted became. "Come on, we're leaving."


	2. The Alarei

Chapter Two: The Alarei

Taking the shuttle to the _Alarei_ was an eye opening experience. Shepard had expected much more external damage, but the hull seemed sound. Indeed preliminary scan revealed there was no structural damage. Then again the synthetics were all about precision, despite the massive waves of geth the shuttle guard warned them about, they never wasted a shot.

The guard also said there were more than there should be, until Tali pointed out there should not have been any. The Guard seemed to think either the geth were building more of themselves or repairing themselves-either prospect was possible. And more than a little troubling.

The _Alarei's_ overall shape at least to Shepard's human eyes bore the look of an old fashioned speaker from the 1970's with pronged spikes jutting off its aft section.

Shepard decided to board the lab ship via the aft emergency airlock nearest to the living quarters. The reason being was simple enough, there may be a small contingent of guards holding position but unlikely to be more than half-dozen at best. It was the surest way in.

"Make sure kinetic barriers are up and shields are on full. Stay frosty; we know how to do this. Tali deploy your drones if we're lucky there won't be any sulkers but if they are, the drones need to neutralize them as swiftly as possible. Same with any mobile turrets.

"I also want you to hack any juggernaut or hunters and set them on their own. Beware of the stealth abilities of the hunters. Garrus override their shields; If I hit them with singularities and lift / pulls. I can set them up and make them fly, make sure your timing is spot-on to cause tech and biotic explosions."

Both her companions gave the affirmative. As soon as Shepard had finished issuing deployment orders Tali tapped into her omni tool to summon both her combat and defensive drones. The latter remained hovering over Tali's left shoulder. Chatika however hovered just before the engineer's right shoulder, bouncing in the air like an over-excited puppy ready to launch itself at anything that meant harm to her mistress.

Just like old times: Only by now the _Normandy_ flagship team were far more practiced.

All three dove for cover behind counter tops and bunk-beds as soon as they entered the crew quarters. Shepard signalled to Garrus to hit the trooper closest to them with an overload, Tali hit the two that followed it with power-drains leaving them open to Shepard's pull. She hoisted the trooper into the air and threw it into its compatriots stomping in behind it. Like a house of cards they toppled over one another—and exploded in a spectacular display of tech and biotics.

Immediately Shepard erected a barrier bubble protecting her and the team from the fallout of shrapnel from destroyed geth platforms falling down around them like so many hailstones.

"Go get them Chatika! Good girl!" Tali ordered her drone as soon as she laid eyes upon Hunter rushing the room with its own bobbing orange drone sweeping the perimeter.

Like binary stars locked in an elliptical orbit the drones engaged one another drawing the attention off of their intended targets onto one another—allowing for the moment both parties to remain undetected by the enemy counterpart.

The Hunter was still cloaked. But a careful eye could see it. A patch fifteen centimetres square at the center of mass. It was as if the air was ripping in tiny visible waves, distorting the sharp edges of the beds and counters behind it. A chink in the armor, as it were.

Tali zeroed in on target. At this range her M-27 Scimitar shotgun was more lethal than Shepard's Kassa Locus SMG. The Hunter faulted back, its personal cloaking shield dropped. As soon as it did Garrus hit with an overload setting it up for Shepard's twin-bladed shadow strike with omni-blade and asari katana. When it exploded Shepard was well out of the way via the shadow-strikes charge.

"Clear. Targets down. Move on." Shepard sheathed the blade and pulled the SMG from its holster on the weapon's pack.

"Hang on. Got something here: an active computer." Tali said moving towards a laptop on one of the private work stations and activated it. The image was a little fuzzy but there was an image of a middle aged male scientist.

'Something's slowing down the algorithm. We're taking down the firewalls to realign the load distributions. Rael'Zorah ordered us to bypass standard safeties. Fallowing security protocols will take too long.'

If there were more to the logs, they could not be retrieved. The rest of the logs were either deliberately deleted or corrupted, regardless they could not be retrieved

"That isn't good." Tali shook her head. "Bypassing the safeties? Father how could you be so reckless?" Both Shepard and Garrus knew she was not speaking to either of them.

"Tali we got to move on." Shepard said.

"Roger that." the younger woman nodded and turned away from her laptop.

The trio moved along an enemy corridor towards the next lab. Shepard and Tali's fingers flagged the triggers of their firearms they moved for the doorway of the next lab. She flanked the right side of the door, Tali the left, Garrus pointed M-8 Avenger directly at the door and nodded. Shepard activated the door's guai locking mechanism. When it slid open, Tali's drone buzzed in and bleeped all-clear.

The three moved into the lab which looked more like a medbay than laboratory. On middle bed was looked to be one of the white sentry rocket drones. Tali recognized it immediately. "This is one of the storage units I sent to Father." she said staring down at the main chassis. "Looks like parts from a disabled drone, plus reflux algorithms I don't recognize. I got this on Illium."

Shepard looked down at the rocket-drone it made her wonder. "What made a part worth sending back to your father?"

"It had to be in working order. Something that could be analysed and integrated into other technology." Tali ran a hand over the chassis. "Anything new had priority. Technology the geth had developed themselves. Signs of modification, clues to their thinking."

"How did you get these things to your father?" Garrus asked.

"Sometimes I left packages at secure drops in civilized areas. Someone on Pilgrimage would see that it was shipped back home." As she spoke Shepard ran her omni-tool over the deactivated drone. Perhaps in attempt to see what her chief engineer saw when she looked at the thing. "For a very valuable find, I'd signal home, and Father would send a small ship.

"Our return trip to Illium was a war zone. How did you salvage gear in the middle of all that and work your magic on Vigil's new body?"

Tali smirked behind the faceplate. "These suits have more pockets than you think."

"I can attest to that. Not to mention snug in all the right places." Garrus backed up his wife, and then coughed realizing he might have said a little too much. His mandibles flickered with his embarrassment.

Both women chose to ignore the poor man's lack of discretion with but simple shakes of chiding heads. Though if Shepard were being honest with herself, Garrus had it in one, that suit was snug in all the right places.

"Quarians learned how to salvage whatever we can whenever we can. Within reason. We are not vorcha. But we repair what most people would throw away. Hundreds of the ships in our fleet were salvaged wrecks, either found dead in space or purchased for next to nothing." Tali said covering for Garrus's little slip.

"Does that salvaged gear give you a clue to what happened here?" asked Shepard.

"No." Tali shook her head. She sighed. "I don't know. Shepard, I checked everything I sent here. I passed up great finds because they might be too dangerous, prone to uncontrolled reactivation or self-repair." another heavy sigh. "I don't know which possibility is worse that I got sloppy and sent something dangerous or that Father actually did all this!"

"I hate to say this Tali, but you heard what that tech said, your father had them bypass the securities to fast track their research. This isn't on you, babe."

Tali didn't answer, she didn't want to. She already knew the answers. They all did. Whatever Rael was doing was the cause of the geth activation, the cause of everything that had happened on the _Alarei._

There were no more answers to be found in the lab.

Tali pushed past her teammates back into the corridor mindful to keep her eyes open for an ambush. She didn't forage ahead into the next lab but held position just outside of it, waiting for Shepard's orders.

Shepard signalled for Tali and Garrus to take cover behind the lab stations—targeting the rampaging hunter and pick apart its shields with an energy drain and overload. Opening it up for Shepard's pull / flare attacks. The AI fell to its knees—silent and dead.

Hacking the safes and laptops revealed little they didn't already know. The team moved to the top of the stairwell just as geth troopers filtered into the lab as the trio entered. They had just enough time to dive for cover. Geth didn't need radios. What one knew the others knew exactly at the same time—they were networked. The troopers became fanatical when they realized what became of their brethren. Networked geth fanatics gained shielding preventing effective biotic attacks.

"Target the hunters." Shepard ordered. "I'm staying on the troopers."

"Roger that." the others acknowledged the command.

Tali had Chatika buzz the hunters, but by now they didn't immediately turn on the hovering sphere they as predicted summoned their own drones. They were ready for the storm. Garrus shot tripwires from the omni-bow. As soon as the geth encountered it the wires set off micro explosions. To those unshielded it was lethal, those protected with heavy shielding or biotic barriers they'd survive—just. The web set Garrus darted to a bird's nest position, targeting the geth through the scope of his Black Widow– one shot—one kill.

He had to be careful and swift or the geth were able to paint him as a target. a few got past his own shield making him take cover in order for the shields to recharge themselves as soon as his HIUD turned green alerting him he was back on full power he popped out took aim, and made a kill just to duck back once again.

Tali's brilliance and talent in geth constructs allowed her to easily hack into their CPUs and cause them to turn on one another. The first wave turned on their brethren who followed after. The engineer jumped on the confusion, took careful aim with her shotgun to those she hadn't hacked but were the targets of those that were. The elongated flashlight heads were vulnerable, but with a shotgun the center of mass was a superior target.

Shepard sent flares and warp fields into the heart of the enemy. Her body hummed in dark energy-surrounded in a biotic annulation field that eliminated the hunters' shields, and weakened their life-force leaving them completely vulnerable. Using pulls Shepard lifted the white shelled hunters off their legs and hurled them into bulkheads. Those that didn't detonate in a biotic combo she would toss sticky-lift grenades at them and watch them explode in a dozen different directions.

More and more she was relying on her biotics as first weapon of choice. An N7 Slayer who thought and moved like an asari Huntress and attacked as a Spectre. Swift, decisive and accurate. She held the enemy fast in singularities, flashed in with shadow strikes only to turn and charge again landing hits with twin biotic slashes—shockwaves sent though edges of her twin blades. Using what skills she learned in the Echo Game, Shepard was able to land hits with an SMG with almost blind aiming.

The first two waves of geth troopers were pushed back and their third died in the cradle. In the moment of quiet Shepard moved up to yet another monitor and began accessing more of the _Alarei's_ records. There wasn't much left but a small snibbit of security footage.

'Who's running the system diagnostic? I didn't authorize...oh Keelah. How many geth are networked?' The voice belonged to a female.

Off camera came the voice of the same male scientist that was on the first laptop. 'All of them. Rael'Zorah...'

The researcher panicked. 'Shut it down! Shut down everything! They're in the system!'

The Spectre zipped past the corrupted recordings to the only one left.

'We locked down navigation. Weapons are offline. Our mistake won't endanger the Fleet' This was no data log this was a last testament for this woman's family. 'They're burning through the door. I don't have much time. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!'

The woman was pleading now. 'Jona, if you get this, be strong for Daddy. Mommy loves you very much!" She screamed the last word as the geth gunned her down.

"Oh god." Shepard. Closed her eyes. Mommy-Daddy? Those are the words for a very young. child. This Jona couldn't be any older than five, six at the most. Goddamn it! There was no way a babe in arms should ever see this. It would destroy him. It would be horrible enough to be told Mommy is never coming home again. He shouldn't have to hear her scream.

In that very small moment between inhaling and exhaling Shepard heard another scream. One that haunted her forever echoing in her memories and in her dreams—Liara's scream as they lost their baby girl. Their Little Sparrow.

"I'm sorry." Shepard whispered and deleted the files. Jona's daddy shouldn't be haunted by his dying wife's screams of death either. Tali and Garrus having heard the woman's terror filled scream and watching the footage as she died knew what Shepard did she did out of mercy. Both of the Trusted had stood out in the halls of the _Victory_ 's medbay after Liara's attack, waiting—hoping- praying that Dr. Chakwas would be able to save the young asari's life. They heard Liara cry of pain and Shepard's anguish filled scream of denial at the death of their child.

Saving another from hearing that cry was a mercy. No one said anything. It was a simple silent agreement to press on.

The next room held supply caches of heatsinks and med packs either left by the marines who had to retreat or they were ships stores, either way the team confiscated them and restocked.

Tali was the first to notice a large interface on the facing wall of the door. "This console might have something. Most of the data is corrupted, but a few bits are left." She synched her omni tool into the core drive and started to hack into the memory banks. "They were performing experiments on geth systems, looking for new ways to overcome geth resistance to reprogramming."

Shepard had to ask however indelicate it might be. "Do you think testing weapons on geth was right?" how she loathed to sound like that swit Koris.

Tali became defensive as she had with the Admiral. "Its not testing weapons on prisoners, Shepard. I only sent Father some parts. Even if he assembled them, they wouldn't be sapient." She pointed at Shepard. "You saw what Saren did with the geth. Any research that gives us an advantage is important!"

 _That's a fair point and more than true enough_. Aloud Shepard asked. "Did you know what kind of tests your father was running?"

Tali shook her head. "No. Father just told me to send back any geth technology I could find that wasn't a direct danger to the Fleet. Like I did when I was with you on my Pilgrimage. I suspected he might be testing weapons but I thought he was just working on new ways to bypass shields or armour."

Shepard inclined her head, pointing with her chin to the console. "Can any of that data clear your name?"

Tali shook her head once more. "Doubtful. This is mostly results data. Effects of different disruptive techniques. I don't understand all of it." Tali started typing activation commands into the keyboard to bring up the recorded data files. "But...they may have been activating geth deliberately. I don't know. Nothing here says specifically. But if they were... then Father was doing something very terrible."

Without a word Garrus stood closer to his wife but didn't interfere with what she was doing. He only let her know that he was there for her

Tali glared at the orange screen as if it had offended her directly. "What was all this, Father? You promised you'd build me a house on the homeworld. Was this going to bring us back home?"

"Maybe its time for your people to let go of reclaiming your homeworld from the geth." uttered Shepard

Tali turned, her voice still angered. Now it was all directed to one person. "You have no idea what its like! You have a planet to go back to. Two of them! My home is one hull breach away from extinction!"

"You and Garrus got a place here Tali, you have Pavlon as well. Don't throw it away in a war you don't need." Shepard went to touch Tali's shoulder but the quarian backed away.

Behind Tali, Garrus winced but he knew far better than to butt in. This had stay between the women he cared for.

"Don't need!? Shepard, if I don't wear a helmet in my own home, be it the _Normandy_ or here I die! A single kiss from Garrus outside of our clean room could put me in the hospital! Every time you touch a flower with bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without air filters you're doing something I can't!" her voice breaking. Yes she was jealous of her best friend. Jealous of the touches she could randomly give Liara the 'just-because-I love-you' kisses she gave as she was passing from one room to the next. That was something she could never do with Garrus. Tali hated herself for resenting Shepard and Liara for this wonderful privilege they had taken for granted.

"Damn the Pilgrimage!" She slammed her fist into the wall. "Without it, I might never have known what I was missing. What we lost when we lost our homeworld."

Shepard looked to Garrus whose eyes were downcast. Without the Pilgrimage, there would be no marriage to the woman he cared for so deeply, either.

"Have the quarians considered colonizing a new world?" Shepard said so very softly it might have been a whisper.

"We'd have enough difficulty reacclimatising to our own native environment. Adjusting for exposure to a foreign colony would be even harder. It's the difference between sixty years and six hundred. For anyone alive now to watch a sunset without a mask, we must take back our home." Tali shook her head letting out a small breath. "At the very least we can take back one ship. Come on." She pushed passed Shepard and Garrus, unlocked the doors barring her way and waited for the others to catch up. She was angry but she wasn't about to allow that anger blind her, especially on a ship still filled with danger.

The room opened up to a balcony overlooking a geth stronghold. There Geth hunters and troopers waited them entrenched, their weapons held at the ready pointed up. Two breaths were all the companions had to sprint for cover. Indeed. Their shields faltered and dropped altogether. It would take another three breaths before the trio's shields came back on line.

The objective clear: keep the geth from coming up the stairs. As before the troopers on the stairs were much easier to cut down than the hunters. The hunter's shields proved more of a deterrent, while they were impervious to inferno ammo they were not so with cryo. During the battles waged against the synthetics whilst on the hunt for Saren, the newly minted Spectre and her team learned geth shields were very susceptible to the snap-freeze ammunition and biotics slams. The former was unavailable to the team on the _Alarei_ , however because of Shepard's mastery to manipulate dark energy she was able to enhance their ammunition with micro-fields of warp-energy.

When they struck home the bullets sheered into the shielding as readily as the biotic combos. Even with energy drinks and pushing her implant past the safeties Shepard could not keep up these attacks indefinitely. She needed time for the implant to cool down to use her gifts effectively.

Holding their current position was a wasted effort, without a word spoken Shepsignalled for her team to fall back and take cover behind the stacked crates. Staggering their attacks between tech explosions, gunfire and biotic explosions stopped the synths from adapting their defensive capacities too quickly.

That wasn't the larger issue. Instantaneous communication was. Organics had to rely on radio transmission to relay INTEL and SitReps, the geth shared a singular consciousness. What one knew-all knew. That was the beauty of a shared mind. The synths sent a band of drones to take out Garrus's net of tripwires.

Trooper assault teams rushed forward already knowing they would be destroyed via the rocket drones Tali had seized and corrupted with her AI hacking. That left the Hunters who stormed in as a wedge, when one fell the one directly behind it took the fallen geth's position by simply walking over and on the defunct platform.

Garrus and Tali were able to create kinetic barriers recovered from fallen geth troopers. It was enough to stop the first volley. The guai shields might hold for a second but not a third firestorm. Limited options and limited time.

"Give them a volley of our own." Shepard ordered. She reached to the side of her weapon's pack and withdrew three of six slam grenades. Garrus and Tali both had six of their own sticky grenades, all of which they launched at their enemy by tossing the skyball sized orbs over the kinetic barriers.

The grenades stuck to the white hardshell platforms-before they detonated Shepard used a warp-throw to push the geth backwards. The fallen geth created stumbling blocks—toppling the platforms that had only a moment ago walked over their chassis.

The team never wasted their moment open to them. Shepard flung out a large singularity—its constant churning undulating radius and its ever-widening epicentre caught the platforms both active and destroyed and fallen detritus into a hurricane. It bought that much more precious time. Garrus and Tali negotiated around barriers, lifted assault rifles and shotguns in absolute precision and opened fire with all due prejudice.

"Fire in the Hole!" Shepard tossed her last three grenades directly into the centre of the singularity allowing the centrifugal energy to cause the most damage in such a confined area. The power of the explosive force was equivalent of an RPG hitting a fuel tanker at very close range.

Her warning gave her teammates time to fall back against the shields and for Shepard to enhance her barriers into a bubble. It was just enough to keep them from dying. Their hardsuit shields however once more were lost—burned out in the repercussion impact of the explosions.

In war there are breaths. Taken and exhaled. The whole outcome of a battle field can be measured in those breaths. In –hold-aim fire. Exhale-center-search-new target. In—hold—aim—fire.

Sometimes the moment between breaths last hours. Sometimes it lasts microseconds. Both times last an eternity. Smoke coiled, rose and clung to the ceiling then got sucked into the ventilation system. As the smoke dissipated the trio realized they had cleared the room.

Keeping frosty they moved down the stairs into the lab proper. There were no parts on tables as there were in the other labs. Here was the epicentre of the geth reconstruction. If there were any parts here, they were now lying destroyed at the _Normandy'_ s teams' feet.

Effectively and efficiently the trio swept the lab. Several laptops lay open but only one had an active file. Shepard immediately hit the playback. It was Jona's mother on the laptop as it had been with the others. As they progressed further and further into the ship the entries on the computers seemed to be dating earlier and earlier:

'First entry. Our hacking attempts failed. The geth have an adaptive consciousness. Hack one process, as the others auto-correct. Still we're making progress. Rael'Zorah thinks we'll have a viable system in less than a year.'

No one said anything. Not a word. By now it was evidently clear. Rael explicitly ignored all safely protocols to expedite his research. His people paid the ultimate price.

Behind her mask Tali winced. The truth sticking home more and more as they progressed. If not for her father these people would have lived. Would have—had lives with their children. Jona wouldn't just have his daddy. Tali touched her still empty womb and thought of the child she wanted with Garrus. She thought for a moment for the daughters growing within Liara's womb that were part Shepard.

She wanted to be different. Needed to be different than her father-than her mother. Her mother...hell she had stronger memories of Aunty Raan than her own mother. She didn't want that for her children.

Her father's legacy was death. The events on the _Alarei_ —all the testimonies recorded on the laptops were testaments to it. Her mind spiralled around those events when she, Garrus and Shepard walked from the lab into the next corridor.

It was there at there at the bottom of the stairwell the three found a body.

"Father!" Tali sprinted to the dead man. Her heart shattered into a thousand pieces of splintered glass. "No, no no!" She shook her head in desperate denial. "You always had a plan. Masked life signs, or, or an onboard medical stasis program, maybe. You! You wouldn't..." Tali wept. "They're wrong! You won't just die like this! You wouldn't leave me to clean up your mess! You can't." the tears fell freely, her body shuddering as grief took her hostage.

"Hey. Hey come here." Shepard cooed softly taking Tali by the arm and enfolding her into her arms, holding her close. From behind Garrus did as well.

"Damn it! Damn it!" Tali sniffed trying to find the air to push past the lump lodged so firmly in her throat. "I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about." Shepard uttered in her softest voice.

"He was trying to help you, Tali the only way he knew how. He didn't want to leave you." Garrus uttered gently, his hand stroking the place between her shoulder blades.

It did not sooth her. In fact the words had the very opposite reaction. "Of course he did! Every time he went off to battle. Every time he sent me away. It was all he about what he wanted." Tali felt the strength in her knees give out. Her words choked by a tightening throat, tears streamed from silver eyes. "I wanted a father who'd take the sick-leave time and let me see his face without a helmet in the way."

Her breath was a hiss as she drank in oxygen. "Instead I got orders. And this. And a panel of Admirals who think I'm a traitor. Those were my father's gifts to me." Tears of rage now muffled her voice.

Garrus was afraid to open his mouth lest he say something to make things worse. He looked over Tali's head to Shepard silently pleading with her to help him make it right. Somehow.

As she had with Liara long ago when her lover lost her own mother on Novaria, Shepard didn't try to placate the hurt, how could it be? But she could perhaps take the sting away from a parent labelled by everyone else as a traitor.

"That's not all he gave you. You got his mind and the best military training in the quarian fleet. You're right, neither Garrus nor I know what it is like to be cut off from the world. To be forbidden simple things like touching the petals of flower. But we both know what it is to have a parent who gives orders rather than endearments, who were swaddled in military issue dippers and show their love by having us strip down a gun in record time and reassemble it in perfect working order."

Those words more emotionally stunted drew Tali back. "Maybe...he would have known I'd come. Maybe he left a message." She turned in the arms holding her and slipped out of Garrus's grasp to kneel back down to her father's broken body.

As soon as she tapped into his omni tool a small holographic projection appeared. "Tali. If you are listening then I am dead. The geth have gone active. I don't have much time." there was struggling for breath after each word. From a cursory look at the corpse it was easy to see why he was struggling to breathe so, as his lungs had been crushed. "The main hub will be on the bridge. You will need to destroy it to stop their VI processors from forming new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrel and Daro'Xen see the data. They must..." The recoding cut out due the massive sound of a very close explosive. "I ...love you...L'il Sparks."

"Thanks, Dad." Tali uttered to the shell of her father's body. She touched her helmeted forehead to that of her father's. A quarian kiss.

"He knew you'd come for him." Shepard said quietly, she knelt down beside the younger woman. "He was trying to help you. It's not perfect. It's not what you wanted. But it's the best he could do." She placed a tender hand on her back.

Tali didn't move. She just stared down at the body. "I don't know what's worse. Thinking he never really cared, or thinking that he did, and this was the only way he could show it." A thousand mile stare fell down like shutters around Tali's silver eyes. "It doesn't matter. One way or the other. I cared. And I'm here. And we're ending this."

The vow made the gauntlet dropped.

The stairs lead to the bridge; this was where that promise came true.

Tali sent her defensive drones up the stairs acting as recon and relay their information directly into Tali's HUD in real time. She linked her HUD vision into Shepard's and Garrus's so they saw what she did when she did.

The tactical drone buzzed the room. There was a prime at the hub linking into the central processing core just as Rael said it would be. Near it were four hunters, as soon as Tali's drone appeared the synths cloaked but did not engage.

Tali and Garrus turned to Shepard awaiting orders. There was no way to flank them coming down the stairs. Not without tactical-cloaking. The only one able to do so was the Spectre. And even then, she was unable to sustain it for longer than a minute. But sixty seconds was all she truly needed.

None of them had any grenades left. But they still had options. "Remember how we took out that dropship back on Illium? I need all your claymores, Garrus. I'll float that bitch directly into the alcove where the Prime positioned itself. When I call I need you to scope and drop this thing." she moved to one of the ammo caches and ripped open the lid to which Garrus stockpiled his remaining proximity mines. There were only three left—it would be enough. "The blast radius should take out the Prime and the severely weaken surrounding hunters' shields."

"Commander, hate to point out the obvious but last time we did this was in open air. A blast like that inside a sealed pressurized container isn't good."

"Noted." Shepard turned to her XO and smiled. Hand it to Garrus to be on top of everything. There was a reason he was in charge of maintaining the heavy gun calibrations. Yes fire as intense as proximity landmines going off on a starship was more than bad news, it was extraordinarily hazardous. "Which is why I'm staying on point to maintain a barrier bubble."

"Shepard that's crazy." Tali protested.

"Which is why it will work. I don't know why we're all standing around here arguing what's been decided. Those flash-light heads won't be logged into the central core long. Tali when you see that bubble go up target whatever hunter you can and make it turn on the rest. We have a limited window before they activate more clankers. Let's make it count."

Shepard's body swirled in a field of element zero, allowing her to charge through solid matter as if she were a neutrino. N7 Slayers dubbed this ability as 'blinking.' Shepard slipped into the stream of dark energy dropped the ammo-case-clicked her comm twice.

Garrus took the cue. He had been watching his commander through the scope of his Black Widow. He saw nothing more than a flicker of purple blue, then a floating crate. He held his breath, squeezed the trigger. Warp-ammo already locked and loaded.

Tali shielded her eyes from the blinding flash of light and spray of smoke and metal. A ball of fire plumed outward like an exploding rose blossom.

Shepard's full concentration was on keeping the inferno contained within the barrier bubble she had generated.

Tali targeted the closest geth CPU. Skill and speed allowed her the precious moments needed to break into the firewall and override programme and turned it against its comrades. Weakened by the fire and plasma rounds it took very short time before all three of the troopers destroyed each other.

Faster than it takes to blink an eye the geth prime stomped out of the dying inferno and backhanded the Commander hard enough to send her flying backwards into facing bulkhead with a loud crack. Her body tumbled to the deck, but she was moving.

"Shepard!" Garrus and Tali called out.

"SHOOT"! The Spectre cried out once she managed to suck in air that had been forced out of her lungs, her head ringing. Her eyes wouldn't focus correctly. "Shoot it!"

The prime whirled around from the prone human on the ground to the last remaining creator on the ship. It had not expected to find rage seething in the quarian's heart. It burned with vengeance, the need to destroy her enemy. Her boldness inspired by hatred. She had one thought to crush the geth, to crush the prime who had the audacity to survive the Spectre's explosion.

"Eat this bosh'tet!" Tali slammed the muzzle of her shotgun into the prime's upper chassis—it's 'rib cage' and pulled the trigger until the heatsink was empty. Every time she pulled the trigger the momentum knocked the prime back. And still Tali pushed on until the prime was forced to lock down its mag-boots. Four. Five. Six. Seven. She was out. The next time she pulled the trigger came back a deafening empty click.

"Garrus: The Collector rifle!" Shepard ordered. The prime was only half functional. Its decrepit shell creaked and groaned. Shepard now master of her senses yanked Tali back with a pull, the power of it as gentle as a mother bear moving her cub from danger.

The heavy weapon Garrus was meant to use- a Collector's particle beam. Was strong enough to take down biotic barriers, enhanced tech-armor and kinetic shields. Its problem: it had very limited ammo. It would be enough.

The prime lumbered forward intent on destroying the last creator standing on the _Alarei_. Each step was a groan of metal screeching against metal. The green beam stuck center of mass. The head of the prime swivelled 180' facing this new insult.

The Archangel saw his greatest and closest friend and commander sail through the air after this tin monster had struck her, saw his wife face it without fear within dagger range. It wasn't rage that filled him. But pride. He would end this tin- monster.

The clanker shuddered. It had no armour, no shielding—no allies it was separate from the collective. Its mental state retarded to simple processing could not counter or anticipate enemy actions.

Its destruction was no less explosive than the firebomb set off in the little alcove. It took a moment to realize the trio had won.

There was no time to congratulate one another, only to take stock in each other's health. Shepard didn't even allow her companions to question how she was doing after being sent flying across the bay. She showed them she was hail and hearty or at the very least gave the facade as such.

"Tali, what do we have?" she inclined her chin to the three computer banks the geth were attempting to link into.

There was no hesitation in the engineer just as there was no hesitation her earlier defence of her commander.

"This console is linked to the main hub Father mentioned. Disabling it will shut down any geth we missed." It was difficult sometimes to recall that the units the geth walked around in were simply shells like computer or omni tool, the true geth were software.

"It looks like some of the recordings remained intact. They'll tell us how this happened what Father did."

"Are you going to be okay with that?" Garrus asked, coming up behind his wife. "You sound like you really don't want to hear it."

"No. We have to, Garrus."

"Take as long as you need, Tali." Shepard echoed the sentiment.

"I know. I just...this is terrible, Shepard..." Tali shook her heard, her voice sounding drained. "I don't want to know that he was a part of this." Without further ado Tali activated the archives.

On the screen was Rael'Zorah alive and whole. 'Do we have enough parts to bring more online?'

'Yes the new shipment from your daughter will let us add two more geth to the network.' Answered the male scientist they had seen on the first console.

Jona's mother was the next speaker. 'We're nearing a breakthrough on system viral attacks. Perhaps we should inform the Admiralty Board just to be safe.'

Rael was swift to shoot that idea down. 'No. We're too close. I promised to build my daughter a house on the homeworld. I'm not going to sit and wait for politicians to argue.'

As soon as Tali heard those words she dipped her head and sadly shook it. It was so much easier when she believed her father to be cold and removed.

A fourth scientist piped up. 'We'd have an easier time of it is Tali'Zorah could send back more working material.'

'Absolutely not! I don't want Tali exposed to any political blowback. Leave Tali out of this! Assemble new geth with what we have. Bypass security protocols if need be.'

"Sounds like he was doing this for you." Shepard said

"He wanted to keep his promise." Garrus added gently.

Tali's whole body became tense. "I never wanted this. Keelah, I never wanted this!" She turned and looked at the still smouldering bodies of the geth. "Everything here is his fault. I tried to pretend it didn't point to him, but this...When this comes out in the trial, they'll..." new tears fell. She stopped speaking for a breath then turned to face Shepard. "We can't tell them, not the Admirals, not anyone."

"Tali we need to use this!" Garrus protested.

"Tali, without this evidence you're looking at exile." Shepard said more firmly.

"You think I don't know that? You think I _want_ to live knowing that I can never see the Fleet again? But I can't go back to that room and say my father was the worst war criminal in our people's history! I cannot!" The heart-broken anger mingled with desperate tears.

"Rael'Zorah doesn't need you to worry about him anymore. You heard him say he didn't want you caught in the politics!" Shepard countered.

"She's right Tali, your father is dead. Don't let his sins be yours." her husband tried.

"Neither of you understand. They would strike his name from the manifests of every ship he ever served on. He would be worse than an exile. He would be a traitor to our people, held up for children as a monster in a cautionary tale! I can't let all the good he did be destroyed for this, Shepard."

"We're not going to deciding anything here. Let's see what the admirals say once we get back." the Spectre said with the full authority of command in each syllable.

"You're my captain in this hearing Shepard. It's your decision. But please don't destroy what my father was." Tali's voice became more resigned to face her fate, defeated. "Come on, if we wait too long, they'll decide we're already dead, and none of this will matter."

The way back was heavy and cloying as the ride to the _Alarei_. Tali couldn't help but keep a watchful eye on her Commander. Trying to anticipate what Shepard would say or do was fruitless. As soon as you thought you knew the woman's mind she turned double summersaults and pirouetted in a whirlwind of countermeasures and counter thoughts. Whatever Shepard was going to do or say it would surprise her as much as it would the Admiralty.

As they landed the trio could hear no doubt purposely so the arguments of the Board over the intercom:

The voice of the first speaker was clear, the grating- grinding tones of the geth sympathizer. *We need to face facts. There had been no word. There is no reason to believe Tali'Zorah survived.*

"Sounds like the hearing is already underway." Tali muttered.

*We must trust Shepard's offer of assistance. It has only been a few hours!* Raan protested. Trying to remain optimistic

Yet even Gerrel was ready to throw in the towel "The quarian marines lasted less than five minutes, Admiral. Call it.*

Condescending as ever Koris voice was full of glee when he said. * A pity Shepard vas _Normandy_ is a better speaker than a soldier. I recommend posthumously exiling Tali'Zorah.*

*WHAT!* Gerrel snarled. Well as least he hadn't fully turned his back on the daughter of his best friend.

*It was agreed that Tali'Zorah would not be convicted if she were killed in action.* Raan reminded them all.

*It was suggested Admiral. I recall no agreement. To that In I call for an immediate vote.*

The team rushed the stairs and stormed into the atrium, just in time to hear resignation in Raan's voice.

"Very well. Is the Admiralty Board prepared to render judgment?"

Tali pushed past the crowd and stood defiantly in the defenders' box. "Sorry we're late." she jeered at Koris

Then Shepard moved forward, her full demeanour was a challenge and commanding. "Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ saved the _Alarei._ I hope this proves her loyalty to the quarian people."

Koris pointed a finger back to Shepard. "Her loyalty was never in doubt. Only her judgement."

From behind the accusing man came Raan's voice. "Perhaps Tali'Zorah can offer something to encourage trust in her judgment."

"Did you find anything on the _Alarei_ that could clarify what happened there?" Came Gerrel.

Tali looked at Shepard and for a moment they held each other's gaze. When Shepard looked away, Tali grabbed the human's arm. "Shepard...please...'

"Does Captain Shepard have any new evidence to submit to the hearing?"

"I don't need evidence. Tali helped me defeat Saren and the geth at the Citadel. That is all the evidence you need. "

Koris shrugged indifferently. "I fail to see what relevance..."

"I'm not done! If this co-called trial is a hearing I _will_ be heard!" Shepard growled. "You're not really interested in Tali, are you? This trial isn't about her. It's about the geth." Shepard leaned all her weight on the rail of the podium in front her, her blue eyes flashing in barely contained rage.

Koris echoed the Spectre's stance, once more he belligerently interrupted. "This hearing has nothing to do with the geth!"

"Bullshit! It has everything to do with the geth!" Shepard slammed her hand down on the railing, not truly realizing or rather caring that by now her body was humming with dark energy. "You want people to sympathize with them! Han'Gerrel wants to go to war! None of you really care about Tali!" By now Shepard's voice was echoing off the walls.

"She knows more about the geth than any other quarian alive. You should be listening to her, not putting her on trial!" She moved to pace causing Tali to take a very quick step back as Shepard took full command of the court. "Tali'Zorah saved the Citadel! She saved the _Alarei!_ She showed the galaxy the value of the quarian people. I can't think of stronger evidence than that!"

"Are the admirals prepared to render judgment?" Raan swiftly took advantage of the upheaval and momentum of Shepard's very powerful display.

Xen was the first to enter her verdict. Followed by Gerrel and then slowly by a chagrined Koris.

"Tali'Zorah in light of your history of service, we do not find sufficient evidence to convict. You are cleared of all charges."

Tali lost a hundred pounds of tension in that moment.

Raan continued speaking. "Commander Shepard, please accept these gifts in appreciation for representing one of our people."

"It's Spectre Shepard and with all due respect Admiral. I didn't represent one of yours. I represented one of mine. If you appreciate me then listen: the Reapers are coming." Shepard once more leaned on the railing trying to hold the attention of the quarian admirals. "I'm going to need your help to stop them. Please don't throw away your lives against the geth."

Koris was the one to answer. "Thank you Spectre Shepard. I hope the Board will consider your advice."

Shepard rose up from leaning on the banister and shook her head disgusted. The panel of Admirals were no better then the Council on the Citadel. By the time anyone in power listened to Shepard it would be far too late. The only hope for the survival of advanced sentient life in the Milky Way may now very well be frozen on the Arks sailing for Andromeda.

"This hearing is concluded." Raan announced. "Go in peace Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_. Keelah se'lai."

Once more the gathered crowd echoed the salutation. And as they started to disperse, Tali followed Shepard, proud, amazed and flabbergasted at what her friend and captain had just accomplished.

"I can't believe you pulled that off. What you said...I've never had anyone speak like that before." She glanced to her husband. Not even Garrus had spoken like that about her. She squeezed his hand but continued to focus her attention on Shepard. "Thank you for being there for my father and for me, even when...Thank you."

"We can still go back in and get you exiled, if you want." teased the older woman, she needed to step back from the rage that had burst from her seconds ago.

Tali chuckled. "Thanks, but I'd fine with things like this." She again looked to Garrus. "More than fine. It's fun watching you shout."

"Have to agree with my girl on that one Shepard. Damn but if you didn't own that trio of twits. Love it when you put the smack down and kick their asses." Garrus patted Shepard on the back. "Next round in the _Normandy's_ lounge is on me"

"It's free there." Shepard said

"Well, I'll still pick up the tab."

Shepard looked to Tali, and felt the need to clear something up. "I didn't do it for Rael. Tali, about what your father said, what he did. You deserve better."

"I got better, Shepard. I got you." and she leaned in to Garrus, wrapping her arms around his waist. "And I have him."

"Absolutely. Always." Garrus's arm coiled around Tali's shoulders, very possessively.

"Come on Miss Tali'Zorah _**vas Normandy**_...let's get back to our ship."

"Thank you...Captain." Tali looked over to Raan and placed a soft hand on Shepard's forearm. The intent of an unvoiced question clear.

Shepard nodded. Things between family should not be allowed to lie as there were. Tali would always regret it if she did not make peace with the woman who was as much as her mother as the woman that gave birth to her. The mission to through the Omega Four Relay could very well be a one-way trip. Now was a time for reunification.

Shepard and Garrus gave Tali whatever time she needed.


	3. Teltin

Chapter Three: Teltin

The Spectre returned to the _Normandy_ alone. After all she figured trying to explain to your aunt (even if she was adopted—best friend to mom sort of aunt) that you were now married to an alien would take a bit of time. Not to mention Tali needed time to properly say goodbye to her father. And to perform whatever funerary rites were needed to send those lost on the _Alarei_ on their way with dignity.

Shepard decided they could spare a day or two at the most. If Tali needed more time, the Spectre understood, more than most on the ship save for perhaps Samara who had recently had to say goodbye to her own daughter. Granted the Justicar had to kill Morinth but that did not lessen the pain. In fact, it made it razor sharp, just as sharp as the pain that lanced though Shepard's chest every time she thought of how she was responsible for the death of Secura. Admittedly she had not been the one who had shot at Liara but it was her actions that caused Udina to retaliate, it was the bond born of the gestalt and the oncoming Cyan Syndrome that added to the babe's demise.

Almost as soon as Shepard put foot to deck on her ship she was approached by Kelly Chambers. "Commander, it's good you've returned. I think we have an issue with Jack. She's been agitated since you Tali and Garrus left. She desperately needs for you to talk to her. She won't tell me what it's about."

Fracking Shakespeare was right. Trouble comes not in single spies but in whole battalions. Shepard squared her shoulders, took in a breath and made a move for the lift from there down to the Engineering level.

When she got down to the cubby hole Jack called home. Agitated wasn't exactly the word Shepard would have used to describe the ex-con's state of mind. She was positively climbing the walls. Shepard watched the younger woman pace frantically back and forth in and out of the cubby to the stairs and back again, like a great cat trapped in one of the cruelly designed cages of an old-fashioned zoo.

Jack gave a less than cursory look to the Spectre: more out of what she could offer rather than what Shepard could deliver.

"I got thoughts crawling in and out of my head like little bugs. I can't stop it." Jack pinned Shepard with distain not for the Spectre herself but for sake of the emotion that was overwhelming her. "You know I got issues with Cerberus. You know how far back it goes?" A question that did not need to be answered.

Shepard answered regardless. "I'll listen to anything you have to say Jack."

Jack moved to the stairs and sat down on the metal grating stair. "Your pal the Illusive Man? Never seen him before. But Cerberus raised me. First thing I remember is my cell door in a Cerberus base. They did experiments, drugged me, tortured me." She looked down to her feet for a moment then lifted her bald head, her dark brown eyes glaring. "Whatever chance I had at being normal...they stole it by trying to turn me into a super biotic. The doctors, the other kids, every one of them hated me. They let me suffer!"

Shepard was appalled. "What did they hope to gain by torturing a little girl?"

Jack shrugged. "There was something about pain breaking down the mental barriers and how it might clear the way for more biotic power." She said the words as if she had read from some report and commenced them to memory. Given that Shepard made sure Jack had access to all Cerberus files via Miranda Lawson that was quite possibly the case.

Jack shook her head. "I'm sure there was some kind of payoff at some point but I never got to see it. All I remember was a scared little girl locked up all alone in a cell, crying!"

Shepard felt like an ass for pointing out something so obvious. "You love the power they gave you."

The ex-con snorted. "They never gave me a choice!"

The Spectre took a few steps closer to the younger woman and leaned the majority of her weight on her left shoulder that was pressed against the wall, her arms folded over her chest as she rested one ankle against the other as to appear as calming and casual as possible.

"How did you get out of there?"

Another shrug. "There was some kind of emergency and I made a break for it. The other kids came out of their cells and attacked me and so did the guards. I just held up my own and ran. I guess my biotics developed faster than they thought.

"I managed to get a shuttle off the ground. Drifted until a freighter picked me up. The crew used me then sold me." the more she spoke of her dark-past the more gravel entered her voice. "That's my uplifting escape story."

"There were other children in the base?"

A dismissive shake of the head. "I didn't know much about them. I was kept separate. They hated me just like everyone else did. When I broke out I had to fight through them all." A wistful dangerous smile slipped upon full lips. "I showed them that there were no loose ends."

Shepard pushed her weight off the wall. "Are you absolutely certain it was Cerberus running the base?"

"I was a kid but I wasn't dumb. I knew how to listen. It was Cerberus! I don't care how far down it chain it was. They thought they were sooo clever." The sick smile returned. "Turns out screw with someone's head enough and you turn a scared little kid into an all powerful biotic bitch. Fucking idiots!"

"I'll talk to the Illusive Man, and he better have some answers. "

"Pft...He'll only lie like he has been the whole time, or that whole shitty thing setting us up on the Collector ship slip your mind? That's not what I'm after anyway." Jack took a data pad from one of the larger cargo pockets on her BDU trousers legs and handed it to Shepard. "I found some coordinates in their files. I want to go to the Teltin Facility, where they tortured and drugged me. I want to go to the centre of the place- my cell and deploy a big fucking bomb and I want to watch from orbit when it goes!"

"Attacking a base with kids isn't something I will do, Jack. I will never authorize a soft target. Not to mention taking something like that out will derail our mission. I can order an All..."

"It's fucking empty Shepard. The files say it was all shut down after my escape. It's been abandoned for years. No kids, no soft targets. Nobody is going to care we blow up a fucking garbage dump!" Jack was on her feet in an instant. Her hands glowing blue just as Shepard's did when overly vexed.

"You lived with this your whole life." Shepard cocked her head to the side, deliberately ignoring the glow. "Why do this now?"

" _Because_ I didn't know where it was before. You can't expect me to just sit on information like this, Shepard. Hell, when all those merc guilds went after your Blue, you declared fucking war on them! You even went as far as to rent a whole building block from T'Loak on Omega to carry it out. I need this like you needed that!"

The Spectre nodded, noting at a casual glance that Jack had clamped down enough to gain control of the knee-jerk reaction of summoning her biotics. "I'll set a course for Pragia now."

That surprised the ex-con. "I owe you Shepard." she said sincerely

The Spectre's answer was only a short nod of the head.

"Shepard..." Jack called out just as the Spectre reached the landing between staircases. "Have the Cheerleader go with us. I wanna see her face when she sees this hellhole. I wanna know how she's gonna cover up the shit her precious Cerberus peeps did to me."

"You may not get the answers you want Jack. You sure you want to do this? To bring her?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"It's your call, Jack. Like you said with TIMmy she may simply deny everything."

"Let her try. "

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

The shuttle swooped in over the Teltin facility. From the air it looked like the jungle had long ago reclaimed it. Having read from the Normandy's codex about the planet before they came here, Shepard discovered that almost the entire surface of Pragia was choked by the hyper-grown of non-native species. She half wondered if this was one of Cerberus terra-forming experiments gone array. Wouldn't surprise the Spectre in the least if were so. It fit the status-quo so far as Cerberus projects went. So long as there was no damned thorian lurking somewhere in the overgrowth, Shepard was happy enough to let the jungle take the facility.

Jack's raspy voice broke over the stillness on the passenger bay and penetrated Shepard's wandering mind. "I'd forgotten how much I hate this place." she gestured with the tip of her chin. "See the landing pad? Had to be on the roof, or the vegetation would overgrow it in a few hours."

Reclaimed indeed.

*Shepard, I am picking up thermal signatures everywhere, except at your landing zone. *

"Considering we're flying into a jungle that's not surprising." Shepard stated the obvious. "Except for the LZ... hmm... means something's distorting the sensors."

"This was a secret Cerberus facility." Miranda reminded them all—unnecessarily in Jack's book.

"Yeah, they built their equipment to last. Assholes." Jack growled. She turned to Spectre unnerved by the weight of what it meant to return. "It was a mistake coming back, Shepard."

"Get a hold of yourself. It will be okay." came a very calm voice.

Taking in a deep breath Jack squared off. No way she was pussying out now. "I'm fine. Okay...let's get the shuttle on the ground."

It was overall a very smooth landing despite the jungle and the deluge pouring down from the sky. _Great_. Shepard thought to herself. _That's we need, go in and find the whole damn place flooded._

"Let's just get in there and plant the bomb in my cell. I want to watch this place burn." the ex-con's words did not elicit a response from either of the other two team members. What was there to say?

Weapons hot, fingers flagging triggers the trio moved from the LZ into what looked to be a reception area or processing center, not unlike a prison. It was difficult to say with the jungle's green creeping in, the destruction and warping of the walls due to the near constant rainfall leaking in various holes in the structure.

"I never saw this room." Jack said looking around. "I think they brought new kids in these containers." At those words Shepard traded looks with Lawson; the former loyalist wisely said nothing, despite the accusatory glare shimmering in both Jack and the Commander's eyes. "They were messed up and starving, but alive. Usually."

Lawson wandered close to one of the security terminals. Not that she did not believe Jack's story about the containers, but she had to know- just how many children Cerberus had harvested over a decade ago. There had to be some rudimentary data concerning the incoming of 'assets'

Lawson found however that there was an audio log inputted from a security officer. She let it play: *The Illusive Man requested operations logs again. He's getting suspicious. *

Immediately following those words was a voice of another man responding: *When we get results, he won't care what we did. But if he knew...*

*He won't find out. * the first scientist cut off his colleague.

"Sounds like this facility went rogue." Lawson said being very mindful this time to stop her hand from reaching her collarbone.

Jack scoffed. "You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? He didn't say what they were hiding from the Illusive Man."

"Poor operations if every other Project and their Leads go rogue. How many is that, now?" Shepard turned to Lawson. "Hell, even the Project Lead from Operation Lazarus went rogue if you look at it from a certain point of view." she quirked a mirthless half grin in Lawson's direction. "As did a certain yeoman. So much for the 'Making Humanity Great Again' campaign."

The next room was a utilitarian gun-metal gray. The only color in this place was the vegetation crawling in from holes in the dilapidated roof. More of the cargo crates for transporting the children (kiddie carriers' the Spectre's mind sardonically categorized the octagonal capsules) were stacked one atop the other—three high. The stacks created labyrinthine passageways throughout the large chamber.

"I remember escaping to this room. Fighting here. I saw sunlight through the cracks in the ceiling."

Shepard inwardly winced and she wasn't the only one as it must have dawned on Lawson that those rays of sun seeping in from the destruction of the explosion must have been the very first glimpse of the sun a very terrified and pissed off sixteen-year-old Jack would have seen.

"Only a half-dead guard between me and Freedon. He was begging for his life."

No one asked if Jack took his life or gave it to him.

In the center part of the atrium were very old blood stains. A look of nostalgia washed over Jack's face. But it was Shepard that spoke. "This looks like an arena."

Jack nodded. "That's right. They used to stage fights here. Pit me against the other kids." she was actually smiling. "I loved it. Only time I was ever out of my cell. "

"Did other children die in these fights?" asked Shepard, her voice cool though it bore no accusation towards Jack but those who did the staging.

"I was a kid, filled with drugs. I got shocked when I hesitated." she took on a more wistful look. "Narcotics flooded my veins when I attacked."

"They actually rewarded you for attacking?" This came from Miranda

The smile remained. "I still get warm feelings during a fight." That explained a hell of a lot.

"That's fracking sick! What the hell was wrong with those people." the coldness in Shepard's voice became sharp as an omni-blade's point.

Jack only shrugged. "I don't know. Doesn't matter now."

"How often did they do this?" Shepard wanted to - needed to - know.

"I was in a cell my whole life. Sometimes they took me out and made me fight, filled me with drugs. Other stuff. Time gets funny in a cell."

 _I bet.._.." What were they studying?" Shepard couldn't help but put voice to her wonderings. Part of her mind went back to Liara's words on Noveria. How locking a girl in a cell for sixteen years and then suddenly letting her loose—she would not be entirely sane or accountable for her actions. How could she be when all she knew was torture pain and terror for those sixteen years. Add to that special conditioning rewards for dissociated killing and you yes you will create a psychotic biotic.

"Hell, if I know. Maybe that's how they got their kicks. I never understood anything that happened here."

"I'm hating Cerberus more and more." Shepard muttered. "We should get going."

"Hell yeah." Jack took point.

The halls were eerily silent, save for the random dripping of water pooling somewhere out of sight. The halls were made even more unsettling by ever creeping plant life intent on its invasion course though out the facility's interior. Passing through another door was another security point. This time it was Jack who activated it.

*Security Officer Zemkl, Teltin facility. The subjects are out of their cells! They're tearing the place apart! Subject Zero is going to get loose. I need permission to terminate—I repeat permission to terminate! *

An over comm-response came from Security Control: *All subjects besides Zero are expendable. Keep Jack alive! *

*Understood. I'll begin the...* Jack shook her head vehemently and switched off the com-device.

"That's not right! I broke out of my cell when my guards disappeared. I started that riot."

"Things might have happened you didn't see, Jack." Shepard calmly pointed out.

"The other kids attacked me. The guards attacked me. The automated systems attacked me." the younger woman got directly into Shepard face and stabbed her finger on the cuirass of the Spectre's hardsuit. "That doesn't leave lots of room for interpretation."

Rather than reprimand her for the action of touching a superior officer, (nevermind Jack wasn't military) Shepard only shrugged. "There was a reason your guards disappeared. They wouldn't leave such a prized 'asset' alone. It's just something to consider."

The only comeback was a 'Pft'. Jack pushed ahead leaving her companions to catch up

Lawson gave Shepard a warning look that said, 'She's already wound tight. Do you really need to antagonize the psychotic-biotic further?'

"Better she let off steam here than on the _Normandy_." Shepard whispered to the unasked question.

The door Jack passed through was still opened when Shepard and Miranda caught up to her, at the bottom of the staircase were two dead varren. Shepard was suddenly very glad she had left her pup back on the ship.

"This place is supposed to be empty. Who the fuck shot that varren? It's a fresh kill"

"Good question. This place was gutted long ago...if there were anything of value or worth the trouble of salvaging it's long gone by now." Shepard said. "Even if this place hadn't been hit, it seems like a very unlikely base of operations for any sort of smuggling outfit or merc guild to set up shop even for red sand development. Unless they are the desperate kind."

"That makes them dangerous." Lawson returned.

"Don't care. Still blowing this shit-hole in to ashes." Jack vowed. She held her M-27 Scimitar assault shotgun at the ready flanking the door. She wasn't so consumed by her anger to storm off into a darkened room—not with those fresh kills behind her and her team.

Miranda took the right flank, holding position. "We got movement on the far side of the room." she whispered.

"Confirmed." Shepard touched the side of her visor allowing the HUD to seek out heat signatures. She saw one large mass- no make that two and seven smaller gangrel shapes. "Count nine. She switched to night-vision allowing for a clearer picture than ultraviolet gave Merc colors... I see markings. It's the Blood Pac." Shepard acknowledged. "Means krogan and vorcha."

"Just means we gotta use a lot more ammo before they regen." Jack scoffed. "Nail the biggest motherfucker with warpfields until there's nothing left but brain jelly."

Shepard nodded her head agreeing to heavy use of biotics. First however, she took a small globe from her utility belt. With a small nod to the head, both Jack and Lawson did the same. Lift grenades- biotically enhanced explosive, they packed a hell of a punch. "Load warp ammo. We move in three." She held up three fingers and counted down, then waved her hand.

All three grenades were rolled into the centre of the room closest to the krogan trooper. Hundreds of shards of shrapnel exploded around them, tearing into the bodies of the Blood Pack. The explosion was enough to distract but only for the time between breaths.

Shepard motioned to the others to set up another sort of explosion. Jack was to use a lift Miranda a throw, and Shepard a flare on the trooper on the ledge above the courtyard. The area effect on the troopers worked, getting four of the six troopers in the courtyard off their feet, Jack used all her rage that been building up in one magnificent throw. Vorcha bodies slammed in to the far wall, their bones cracking. Not dead but out for a second.

Shepard concentrated on the troop on the ledge, pulling the vorcha from his perch with a flare causing his body to lift, swirl as if in a singularity then slam two stories down into the bodies of his cohorts more especially the second krogan. Jack and Lawson pushed forward into the courtyard taking cover behind crates.

All this happened within a span of two point six seconds. The one to recover first were the krogan. The first- the larger of the two grabbed his Claymore shotgun and charged towards the women.

"They see you Jack!" Miranda called out. "Enemy surging! Clear the blast zone." Lawson threw the krogan back using a warpfield with everything she had left. Beforehand she had the foresight to toss one of the remaining two grenades she had left into the field.

Jack lifted her rifle and shot the krogan in its great maw and emptied the chamber. Echoing her shot for shot was Shepard with her hand-cannon into the krogan's massive face. The only truly vulnerable spot on a krogan's head. Overwhelmed by the array of fire and biotics the male fell.

Having taken out the trooper on the ledge, Shepard turned her attention to the rest of the small horde, regardless of seeing their leader cut down the vorcha surged forward. The only thing keeping them back was the heavy singularity field—placed there by all three biotics.

The next few seconds were critical. The second krogan fell into a blood rage. "Try a real man's weapon!" The challenged roared as the massive form surged forward, propelled by his natural prowess. The bloodrage was powerful but rendered those under its influence mindless. A mind wasn't needed for the sheer deadly power of kinetic force of a krogan charge.

The krogan had to be an adept as he used a biotic lift to launch himself over the singularity field to land directly in front of the smooth skin bitches that tore open his pack mate.

He made a grab for Jack, but he hadn't accounted for the equal rage engulfing the psychotic-biotic. Just as she had with the mechs back on the _Purgatory_ , Jack used a specialised warp-throw that generated a ball of subcutaneous dark energy that expanded within the center off mass of whatever unfortunate thing or being that just happened to be her target.

She pushed the orb of pulsating dark energy onto the chest of the shell-back. A scream of pure rage rippled out of the ex-con's throat. She poured that rage onto a single attack, the power of the mass effect field tore into the male's chest creating a cavity large enough she could have slipped through as if crawling through a tunnel.

Jack's body primed and pumped fueled by surging dark energy she used the fallen krogan as a spring board and launched herself over the vorcha pack-landed and set off the last of the superfluous power in the form of shockwaves. Like bowling pins along the polished floor of a bowling alley, the vorcha were tossed this way and that. Shepard's s area flare crushed one lot leaving Lawson the second. Her reaction was to send the vorcha back towards the far wall with her own shockwave.

For the moment, the trio took in the fetid decaying air that still stung with ozone, metal shavings, plant life, dirt, mould and blood. Shepard looked to each of her teammates. No CO worth her salt proceeded into hostile territory without insuring her squad was five-by-five. And they were.

Only now were the three women granted the time to take in their surroundings. The room they were in looked to be access surgical theatres and labs. One room though stopped Jack cold.

"Why did they need a morgue? This was a small facility." Jack frowned. None of this made any sense to her.

It was Miranda who answered. Her voice softer than Shepard ever recalled hearing outside of talking to and about Oriana. "A lot of children died here. Even then, they were a part of the experiment."

"Bullshit. I had the worst of it, and I made it out alive."

Jack may have indeed had the worst of it, by her own admission she was conditioned to kill other children in the arena. After they died there would be dissection if not vivisection on the near dead if only to enhance Jack's abilities even further.

The bald-headed woman shook her head and the nightmare memories that were rapidly clouding her judgment.

Shepard always believed in confronting one's demons. But this place-perhaps Jack was right back on the shuttle when she said coming back here was a bad idea. PTS... was not something to scoff at and shrugged off. And with Chambers the only viable counsellor onboard it did not bode well for Jack in the forthcoming weeks—hell perhaps even years to come.

Still following the ex-con Shepard shuffled away her own misgivings and presented the more confident facade her crew came to rely upon.

One more door, one more catwalk. "I feel like...I'm pissed off. I'm a dangerous bitch but then I'm a little girl again. Shit, it's complicated. Let's just go and plant that bomb." It was eerie how Jack's words echoed Shepard's thoughts.

The door opened up to yet another set of stairs. These were heading down. Immediately the waiting vorcha opened fire not allowing the trio to take a breath before taking cover behind more stacked crates. The catwalk was a perfect bird's nest for sniping any unwanted intruders. And to the Blood Pack nothing could be more unwanted than a Council Spectre and her lackeys. More of the vorcha like the vermin they were so commonly compared to slinked out from behind walls and popped up like wack-a-mole targets to take shots at the women.

It made targeting troopers with firearms difficult. Biotics were another matter. All three used their lift attacks to arch over the cartons and hoist the startled vorcha up off their feet. As one the three propelled the swirling and tumbling bodies back against the far bulkhead six meters away.

Like krogan vorcha could regen but broken spines and necks were not something so easily ignored or healed. If any of the five vorcha still lived they were forever paralyzed. Hardly a concern for the trio, they had been neutralized.

Yet another door that led to a balcony that overlooked a proper atrium. Or what passed for an atrium in this place of gray and metal. The trees below were planted deliberately—not a part of the jungle's aggressive overgrowth.

Jack looked at a window on the far side of the room. "This...is a two-way mirror? My cell is on the other side. I could see all the other kids out here. I screamed at them for hours, and they always ignored me.

The catwalk led to another door, but rather than go directly to Jack's cell the three diverted to an observation deck.

"I must have come though here when I broke out, but I don't remember." Jack admitted. She stopped and like a child her mind flared with warnings "This is a bad place!"

Shepard moved to put a hand upon the smaller woman's shoulder but stopped just shy of touching her. The comfort was not something that Jack would welcome at least on in the presence of another—especially the Cheerleader.

Slowly Jack made her way to a security panel and activated the memory logs. This held the most recent archived data. It was the voice of the scientist from the first panel they had activated.

*Entry 1054, Teltin facility. The latest iteration of PergNim went poorly. Subjects One, Four and Six dies. No biotic change among the survivors. We lowered core temperatures of surviving subjects, but no biotically beneficial reactions occurred. As a side effect, all subjects died. So we'll not try that on Zero. I hope our supply of biotic-potential subjects holds up. We're going though them fast.*

"This is bullshit! They weren't experimenting on other children for my safety!" Jack roared.

"You can't help what they did to others." Shepard said sagely.

Jack turned her back on the Commander. "You didn't get it Shepard." her voice almost breaking. "I survived this place because I was tougher than the rest. That's who I am!"

"Then find strength in it Jack. You move on, harder and tougher."

Jack nodded; squaring her shoulders she hit the next entry. It was the same needle-man from before. *It's all falling to pieces. The subjects are rampaging and Zero is loose. We're shutting Teltin down. What a disaster

*We'll infiltrate and piggyback on to the Alliances' Ascension program. Hopefully that will-who are...? Zero, wait!* The holographic image of Needle-man went flying and the feed cut out.

Jack spun around, anger and fear laced her doe brown eyes. "Shepard, they started up somewhere else."

"Ascension is an Alliance program. It's a school for biotic kids. They don't torture kids there. I know the director of the Grissom Academy, she's a good woman. Solid.

"It's also a school those gifted in science-maths and the arts. Believe me Sanders has no love for Cerberus." Looking to Miranda for a moment Shepard turned her gaze back to Jack.

"The Cerberus bastards did try to infiltrate the Ascension Program but the man they put there was discovered and executed. The child they tried to turn into the next Subject Zero is safe from Cerberus's clutches. Trust me on that." Another look to Miranda. "And yes to get to her Cerberus captured and tortured and murdered quarians they believed to be harbouring the girl. What Cerberus did here...they can't do again." This time Shepard did place her hand on Jack's shoulder but only for a micro-second before she pulled her hand back.

"A lot of this-isn't the way I remember it." the younger woman finally admitted.

"He-ey...there was a lot going on. Make sense it isn't exactly how you thought it was."

"I was dumb. I keep my eyes open now, and I always shoot first. We're getting close to my cell. The place I came from. Let's keep going."

They passed through the 'Bad Place' and came upon what looked to be a salvage team ir would be if they were not so very heavily armed. More vorcha, more krogan in old Colossus style armor of black and red, favored by the Blood Pack.

Immediately the trio took cover. Shepard signalled for both Jack and Miranda to indicate pulls on the enemy setting them up for Shepard—throw which would result in an impressive biotic explosion.

"Hey Aresh, it's Kureck. Yeah, the intruders are here. You want them dead, we have to talk creds. You promised us lots of salvage, but this place is a waste.

"We got 'em," Jack whispered her shout. "Like I just said. Shoot first."

Shepard wasn't disagreeing, she thought she might have gotten the krogan leader to monolog allowing her teammates to target and take out the vorcha, but the turtle didn't seem the chatty sort.

Shepard signalled for the trio to use the last of their lift grenades. Miranda had one left; Jack had two as did the Spectre. In a synchronized movement, the volley of grenades arched over the cover of crates and cartons the vorcha had taken shelter and landed in their midst. The blast destroyed the cartons, made a metallic tangle of the crates and vorcha bodies alike.

Kureck called out to his squadron clearly disgusted with the slathering piranha faces. "Push and overrun! We outnumber and outgun them all!

"That's when we fight best asshole!" Jack screamed back. "I'll destroy you all!"

Shepard targeted the Blood Pack pyros turning them into walking bombs. The vorcha realizing the isohaline tanks on their shoulder packs were readying to explode hurried with frantic taloned fingers trying desperately to climb out of them but they were neither fast enough nor calm enough to unlock the belts.

The bodies of the pyros were pulped and came back down in the room in orange rain. There weren't even enough of their bodies left to fall in meat chucks.

Kureck barked over the chaos. "Tighten up. I want suppression, and I want it now!

The trio kept moving, never giving Kureck a change to get a bead on them, cashing around the enclosed place, slamming the remaining vorcha with shockwave, slams and throw after shockwaves, slams and throws. In their spiral dance, they the three pummelled the massive battlemaster with warps.

"Useless, all of you! I'll kill them, myself!" Kureck snarled climbing to his feet after Jack's warp field crumpled his body like an empty aluminium beer can.

"I highly doubt it." Miranda usually not one to snark back over the battlefield simply couldn't help herself. "You have no idea who you are facing."

Don't say hero of Skillian Blitz, don't say hero of Skillian blitz.

"Hero of the Skillian Blitz, the first human Spectre!"

Augh. Shepard made a disgusted noise. "He's already dead, Miranda. I don't think he actually cares who I am. And since when did you get into trash talking?"

"Since she's been hanging around me!" Jack laughed as she targeted the last of the vorcha blew his head clean off.

"I know you Shepard! I know what you did on Omega. I know what you did on Elysium!"

"Yeah? Then I'd back down and go get more guys." Shepard shot back before her brain could catch up. She turned to the others. "Spider-trap!" She issued the order even as she sprinted away. Spider-trap—code for laying trip wires from their omni-bows.

The power of dark energy granted the three humans inhuman speed allowing them to lace the arena with blazing orange guai-illuminated wires. With speed that belied the krogan's massive girth Kureck charged towards the Great Hero of the Skillian Blitz. He had lost brothers in that damned raid on Elysium. Clutch-brothers. That was something he could never forgive. He lost Pack brothers on Omega. Another crime. An unforgivable crime he had pledged a blood-oath to take the human cunt that had destroyed his brothers.

Now he had her. He trained all concentration of fire power on Shepard. The N7's armour shielding held up against the assault as did her barriers.

"Get to goddamn cover Shepard!" Jack roared needlessly as the woman in question biotically charged the upper balcony. The mass effect field around her body allowed her body to 'phase' through the low bulkhead and appear solid on the other side. She was safe from the barrage. But Kurak's assault did not let up. If anything, they became more oppressive.

Miranda used a slam, Jack a slam directly into Kurak's center of mass. The krogan toppled in air as if caught in an unending spiral of Zero-G, allowing Shepard the micro-second to let loose a flare. The three powers combined made for a very effective, very powerful biotic explosion.

Kurak fell to the ground. Still alive. Without a word, Jack strode up used her shotgun and shoved the muzzle directly under the over-flap of the krogan's upper lip- pointed up and pulled the trigger. The affect was an impressive spray of orange mist, bone and gristle.

No coming back from that.

The trio came together. Panting hard and gathering their wits. "Everyone good?" Shepard asked wanting a post-battle SitRep

"Five-by-Five, Commander." Miranda answered for her and Jack both: the former taking a very deliberate effort not to look in Jack's direction knowing without a shadow of doubt the ex-con was giving her a 'shit that was a good fight, I want to get laid' look. An experience Miranda was growing to appreciate more and more. Their hate sex had turned into something less hate filled and more lustful. It was strangely contrarily welcome and uncomfortable.

Jack wiped the sweat off her brow with her forearm. "Only room left is my old cell. Whoever Aresh is, he's in there." She slammed another heat sink into the chamber of her shotgun. "I want to plant the bomb there, anyway. Might as well do it on his corpse.

Steeling herself. Jack was first through the door to the place she knew as home for the first sixteen years of her life.

There was no Aresh. No vorcha, no krogan. The room seemed all but empty.

"Come out, we know you're here." Shepard said in her most authoritative voice.

Slowly a man near the same age as Jack stepped out of the shadows from the corner where he had been skulking and confronted the trio.

"Who are you?" Jack demanded

"My name is Aresh, and you're breaking into my home." his voice was broken, and soft. on the edge of madness. "I know you, Subject Zero." he turned his back on the women. A large mistake on his part. "So many years have passed, and I thought I was the only survivor."

"My name is Jack. How the hell do you know me?" the ex-con wasted no time in pulling her Carnifax pistol and aiming it directly at Aresh's skull. She didn't give a damn his back was to her or not. She'd plug him all the same.

Aresh turned, "We all knew your face Jack. They inflicted horrors on us so their experiments wouldn't kill you. You were the question, and I'm still looking for the answer."

"Looks like you're not the only one pulled back here, Jack," Shepard said. "He was drawn here just like you."

Aresh turned to Shepard then and issued his words more to her than to Jack. "I tried to forget this. But a place like this...it doesn't forget you." He tapped the side of his head with his forefinger. "It follows you. I hired these mercs and came back here almost a solar year ago. We're rebuilding this place, piece by piece." He turned his attention back to Jack.

"I'm going to find out what they knew-how to unlock true biotic potential in humans. I'm restarting the Teltin facility." Once more his back was foolishly turned towards Jack. "It will be beautiful!"

Jack turned to Shepard. "I wanted a hole in the ground-he's trying to justify what happened by using it!"

"Aresh. you'd start it again? You'd do the same thing to new kids? Wasn't this forced on you?"

Aresh turned once more facing the women. "Some were bought from poor families on Earth, or kidnapped from colonies. Most ended up here the way I did: batarian pirates. They did such horrible things to us. They must have had good reasons." He scratched the back of his head at the implant site. A place all three of the women by personal experience knew was a sensitive area for biotics.

His words nearly set Jack off into a rage. "There is no reason good enough!" she snarled. "Are you nuts? You lived it!"

"This place was like a prison. How did you get out?" Miranda asked.

"We all attacked at once as they were taking us to the lab. They would have put us down, but then Jack got loose." he sounded mystified or perhaps just in awe. "When I came to, it was over-the guards, the scientists, and the kids were all dead. And you were gone."

The pistol was growing heavy in Jack's hand she kept it from shaking, barely. "I stopped it, all of it. Maybe the others did have it bad, but what you're doing is just messed."

Aresh now talking with is hands countered all of Jack's arguments. "Everything we went through must have been worth something!" he was desperate to believe it, needing to believe that he was anything but a test subject to keep Jack alive. He had to have some meaning to the torture.

This was going to go no where. Shepard put an end to the circular argument that was surfacing. "We can blow up the place, but that still leaves him. What do we do with another you?"

Jack lowered her hand and walked to Aresh's side. "That's easy."

Almost as if he were agreeing with her, Aresh nodded. "Just leave me here. This is where I belong."

"Fuck that!" Jack snapped. Her body pulsed in dark energy, the blue glow swirled around her has she summed up a micro mass effect field and slammed it into Aresh sending the broken man to the ground. Once down she pulled her pistol out from the holster and held it this time in both hands.

"Jack he's trapped in his past. You need to move on from yours." Shepard intervened.

"He wants to restart this place. He needs to _die_!"

Shepard took a step forward, one more and she'd be directly over Aresh. "He's crazy, and he's never going to restart this facility. You have to let it go. Your past doesn't have to control you."

Jack snarled, took in a deep breath and snarled once more. "Fuck!" a heavy sigh. "Get out of here! Go!"

Aresh didn't need to be told twice he was on his feet in a thrice and dashed out of the door as swiftly as was able.

His footfalls still sounded in the hall as Jack muttered. "He's not worth chasing. None of it is."

"You did the right thing, Jack."

"Maybe." fucking Queen of the Girl Scouts. She turned away from Shepard not wanting to see the proud smile on the older woman's face. "This room was my whole childhood. Give me a minute to look around."

"Take all the time you need." Shepard said.

"Nothing's changed...but it's all different."

The room was indeed a jail cell it had its own toilet, sink and small counter top for toiletries. a broken dresser, a desk and a bed that looked more like a cot than proper bed. No wonder Jack preferred the camping cot down in her hidey-hole. It was familiar.

Together the three of them approached the large bay window. Jack sighed "I thought that room out there was the rest of the world. I'd pound and yell. Never did any good. "

Miranda looked away. She was a prisoner as a child as well but at least she tasted the rain on her tongue, walked barefoot on careful manicured lawns, ate ice cream on a hot sunny Australian afternoon. listened to the birds and counted stars and wished upon the ones that fell. She listened to crickets' chirp and swam in a very large pool

She had wanted for nothing save for the freedom from her father. But she had...life. Jack had metal, cement and glass. Reared to kill, punished if she didn't. Sixteen years in a solitary room- was it any wonder she was a high functioning sociopath? Called the psychotic-biotic...

Jack's raspy voice cut into the guilt lacing Miranda's heart. "Sometimes I dream that I'm back in this bed being tortured. Sometimes I used to tie the sheets around my wrists and try to rip them off. I want to stop coming back here."

How many times do you come back here? Miranda asked herself, and she cold see that the Spectre was asking the same question to herself as well. How many nights did Jack's dreams bring her back to this place, believing she was back here in horrible solid- lucid dreams that seem so very real you doubt you are dreaming.

Jack went to the desk, dragging her fingers across the dusty surface, leaving finger marks like furrows in a ploughed field. "I used this table for everything. It was like my best friend. I'd crawl under it to cry. I was pathetic." she tilted her head side to side as she traced her hand along the surface once more.

Then without any further ado anything further she simply walked out of the room. Once out in the corridor she paused by a wall. "See the scarring on the wall here? That's where I killed my first man. One of the guards tried to stop me. instead I stopped him." like the desk she traced her calloused fingertips along the ancient blood splatter and impact crater left by biotic attack "Okay, no more wallowing. Let's blow this place to hell."

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

The trio were sat upon the crew section of the shuttle. All silent. Shepard's arms were crossed over her chest, her eyes steadily watching the only movement in the bay. Jack was flipping the lid of the detonator like one fidgets with the flip-lid of a lighter. open-close-open-close-open-close-open the button pushed.

Shepard's eyes widened and she slammed her fist into the bulkhead. The shuttle must go faster—must go faster

The shuttle pilot pushed the small engine as fast as possible barely flying out the blast radius of the neutron bomb they had planted in the facility. And yes, Jack got her wish: she saw the Teltin facility explode from orbit.


	4. The Thing

Chapter Four: The Thing

As soon as the shuttlecraft made touchdown in the hanger deck, Jack popped open the side hatch, leaped out and was half way across the bay even before the remaining members of the team disembarked.

The two dark haired women watched in silence for a moment. Then Shepard spoke, "You're going to need to sort this out. I don't know what it is you two have between you, but I'm not blind, Miranda. She might have buried a few demons back there, but their corpses cast very long shadows."

Miranda turned to the speaker who continued to stare towards the double doors that lead out of the bay. She and Jack had been discreet with the hate sex, hell they even made sure things were kept on the very quiet side, when lust filled moments of passion overtook them. And there had been a lot of those moments, particularly after one or the other and most especially both had been on a mission

"Commander…"

"Let's pretend you're not going to deny there's something between you two. That it has nothing to do with Jack's well-deserved loathing for Cerberus and you being one of TIMmy's foremost loyalist, former or not."

Silence.

Shepard took a step forward, turned and looked at Miranda, her gaze darkened. "What happened down there…was unforgivable." There was a pause. "But then again almost everything Cerberus is involved with is morally bankrupt and more than dubious."

"I know." Then Lawson recognized the pause of breath between them for what it was. An unasked question. One that shouldn't be asked but had to be. "You want to know if I condone what happened down there? If I'll tell you sometimes sacrifices are necessary?"

Shepard gave her a sharp look. "Isn't that the Cerberus byline? 'Sometimes sacrifices are necessary in order to make humanity great again—to be equal with the aliens.'"

In fact, that was precisely what The Illusive Man had told her back during the days when Project Viper was in the works. The project's objective was to develop anti-toxin weaves for hardsuit body-sleeves and simultaneously to create toxic ammo to use against humanities' enemies… more specifically Cerberus's enemies.

The discovery of giant subterranean worms that could burrow under the ground at tremendous speed became the birth-child of Project Viper. The thresher maws were an apex predator. Their venom was powerful enough to cut through the durasteel chassis of a mako. It made for a very effective weapon. One Cerberus saw as very valuable. The question was how to effectively harvest this beautiful commodity.

The answer came with the Alliance. More specifically their marines. Akuze had a thresher maw nest. A breeding ground. Send a distress signal in to the heart of it and watch as the Alliance happily sent in the 'Calvary' to rescue the poor unfortunate souls that cried out in their pain and terror. The maws attacked the marines who had been led into the trap and then the miraculous thing occurred. One of the marines had survived. A corporal named Toombs: his body was flooded with maw venom. Jackpot. Without hesitation Lawson the Project's Lead ordered for Toomb's immediate extraction. Once the terrorized man was in one of the more secure facilities at the Minute Man station Lawson had ordered a battery of tests to be performed.

At the time she had never considered Toombs anything more than 'subject.' It was easier that way. Lawson had pushed down any feelings of guilt that threatened to bubble up into her heart like some necrotic disease. Sacrifice was necessary. The deaths of all those Alliance men and women, what Cerberus scientists did to Toombs, it all had a purpose.

Identifying with subjects as a human or whatever alien was in the labs was a weakness, it clouded one's judgment. Back then there was never a **Thing** to dog Miranda's heels or haunt her dreams. Instead Lawson busied herself with getting results.

If a single human could survive the venom of a thresher maw why not others? This went beyond antitoxin weaves and chemical ammunition. Lawson presented the notion if Cerberus troopers could be conditioned with treatments of venom they could very possibly become immune to other such toxins. Krogan and by lesser extent vorcha after all could shake off exposure to toxic chemicals and environments with laughable ease.

Dr. Vorschslagg's neo-troopers had been the first to receive the treatments. Of the dozen commandos, nine had survived. Of those nine each were cloned several times over. When the Reapers came Cerberus would be ready with an extended army, the likes of which Earth had not seen since the time of the Roman Empire.

Sacrifices were necessary. Lawson even tried to convince herself that Admiral Kahoku's death had served a purpose. It was only after Shepard gained prominence as a young Lieutenant who had newly earned the Star of Terra had that the **Thing** started to make its unwanted appearance. It was easy to silence it back then. It became harder and harder each time Commander Shepard rose in power and fame. Now the great Hero of the Skillian Blitz was a Spectre. The first human Spectre. All eyes of the galaxy were now on her, and her actions as the first Spectre of humanity.

As the dark haired N7 swept through the Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse, Lawson became even more a loyalist to Cerberus. Shepard was a bloody icon, a woman to admire even if she was leaning towards becoming an alien sympathizer.

Then after the defeat of the Sovereign and the rise of new Project: Caesar which later became known as Lazarus, Lawson started to ask questions of herself, of Cerberus and lastly of her mentor: The Illusive Man. The **Thing** had grown as larger as a destroyer class warship.

Never more than now was Lawson been haunted by that blasted _**Thing**_. And here it was again: with Jack, with what had happened in Teltin. She recalled the words of the Illusive Man echoing in her skull, raw and abrasive. At one-time Lawson had lapped up every syllable her great leader offered as if were ambrosia.

'Terror is the most effective political instrument …Cerberus shall spread terror by the surprise deployment of all our measures. The important thing is the sudden shock of an overwhelming fear of death especially if it comes from the hands of aliens. Humans must rise to dominance in all fields: military, science, information, politics.

'We will seed all infrastructures with our people in order to save humanity, to make it rise above all others. Humans are the babes in the woods, Miranda. We can not afford the luxury of remaining in awe of alien life and the vastness of space. Cerberus must be humanities guardian. What happened at Shanxi—the Skillian Blitz can never happen again.

'Cerberus will be there to insure this. We must have loyalists in our fold to lead all the xenophobic zealots that flock to us in droves. They are chattel, very useful if deployed properly. But they will all need to be herded. We hounds of war will do so.

'We must insure all adhere to the axiom: Obedience breeds discipline. Discipline breeds unity. Unity breeds Power. Power is life. Life is humanity's survival. Survival is Cerberus. Cerberus breeds obedience.'

Cerberus now carried the heritage of being shunned not only by the aliens but the Alliance as well and that had informed their interior society. Scorn had imparted to the members of the dark organization a conviction that progress came only to those who proved themselves not merely capable but predatory. Reaching the top of the food chain required that the bodies of the weak be used as stepping-stones. Once the summit was attained, it was held by seizing whatever resources were available and preventing others from grabbing them-so long as those resources coincided with those of Cerberus or rather The Illusive Man.

Those tenets were frequently offered as explanations as to how and why members of the organization like Lawson, Kia Lang and Rasa had risen so rapidly to the fore of Cerberus domination, whose signature was callousness.

Shepard never had to lead by terror, or fear or horror. She led by heroic will and example alone. Everyone aboard the _Normandy_ would eagerly take point heading into the gates of Hell if Shepard ordered it. That now included Jack. Hell, it even included Miranda. Something Lawson barely managed to admit to herself, that she was now more loyal to Shepard than she had ever been to The Illusive Man.

And right now, after everything that had happened on Pragia, Jack would be a coiled ball of rage for everything or anyone who and anything to do with the double diamond that was Cerberus. And Shepard had just asked the _Cheerleader_ to take point on the way to hell.

Damn.

Well it couldn't be helped, could it? The _Normandy_ was a small ship and unless Miranda wanted to pack up and abandon ship and thus the mission, there was no way to avoid the bald young tattooed woman.

"I don't know what you want me to say to her, Shepard. Apologize for what happened to her…?"

"That would be a start." The N7 cut her off with close scrutiny. "I'd go with that." She said nothing more, nothing more need be said. The order was given and was expected to be obeyed.

Double damn.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME

Jack slipped through the halls like vaporous cloud. The crew either precognitively sensed her encroaching storm filled mind and made themselves scarce or were otherwise occupied. Either way the corridors were mercifully empty.

Instinct made the young tattooed woman go for her cubby under the stairwell to engineering. At once she came up short and stared; just stared it hadn't occurred to her until now that the exact layout of her cubby was a mirror of her cell back at Teltin.

The bed near the right bulkhead, the crates that made up a make-shift desk…even the crates near the opposing bulkhead were representative of the rest of the furnishings of her former cell.

In a heat of unrepentant impetuous rage, Jack slammed the heel of her combat boot into the crates that made up the 'desk' with a biotically enhanced kick. She hadn't even realized until now just how much she carried that fucking cell with her. She didn't even want to think of how many other places she had called home however temporarily had been clones of her cell.

Fucking cock-sucking Cerberus! Jack screamed her rage. She turned and blazed up the steps two at a time. Out in the corridor she slammed her fist into the button that would summon the lift, entered and with the same fist hit the button that would command the lift to go to the crew quarters.

It took an eternity.

Once Jack got to her destination she marched instead to the port observation deck. She wanted to get blind-fucking drunk. And the only bar aboard Q.O. 's precious warship, if it could be called a bar was nestled in the thief's claimed quarters.

Without preamble of explanation Jack barged in and went directly to the bar. Hardly taken by surprise Kasumi quietly activated her stealth-unit disappeared from view and swiftly and discreetly vacated the lounge.

She moved directly across the corridor to the starboard observation deck. No one was more silent, not even a mouse running on a shag rug than Kasumi when she wanted to go unnoticed. Samara wouldn't mind a guest in the room she had claimed as her quarters. Besides she had her earplugs, omni-tool and one of her favored novels. Yes, she had read the book at least a dozen times over but it was a very good story. Not to mention Kasumi had Kaji's graybox and visor. The thief could easily slip hours away, a whole day and night steeped in the very precious memories of her belated lover.

Unlike Jack, Kasumi didn't simply barge in the matron's (or was she a matriarch?) quarters. The question bugged Kasumi a little bit. She knew Samara was nearly a thousand years old. Shouldn't that make her a matriarch? Kasumi knew that being a matriarch wasn't just a title it was a stage in the asari life cycle. Perhaps it was true then that asari go through their stages of life at their own pace.

Granted for 400 years the Justicar had been preoccupied with hunting down her daughter – the rogue ardat-yakshi thus had not focused her abilities to ascend to the next stage. With a dismissive thought, guess it didn't really matter, all Kasumi knew or rather witnessed even if Samara wasn't a matriarch her biotics were nearly as powerful as one. And maybe being a Justicar was a greater title?

Irregardless Kasumi paid the much older woman respect. "Samara-san, do you mind if I crash here for…well until Jack leaves my quarters?" Out of habit born out of her own heritage she addressed the asari with highest respect.

"Not at all." Samara turned her attention to the thief. As was typical the Justicar had been deep in meditation. So deep that Kasumi wondered if this was how Samara 'slept'. Because the asari never seemed to sleep. At all. there was no evidence of sleeping accoutrements: no pillows, mats, blankets or sheet.

Another part of Kasumi's mind flickered to Kaji's graybox, was Samara's nearly constant meditation a way to delve into memories of a happier time in the Justicar's life, when her daughters were younglings, where her bondmate was still alive. Kasumi understood the need to reconnect to the lost.

"How does she fare?" asked Samara in an extremely rare indulgence of curiosity.

"Who? Jack? Don't know…"

"You hesitate."

A sigh. A moment of thought. Then: "She came back angry, but…her eyes…" another sigh. "were like yours after Shep helped you on Omega. Lost, resolved, knowing there was a finality to it all and not knowing what to do with it. She got to say goodbye to the monster that stalked her ever since she left that hellhole. Sorta like me too, I guess after Shep and I killed that bastard that murdered my Kaji."

Kasumi and Samara traded knowing looks.

"The ending of one's greatest pain can be disorientating and more disconcerting than one has prepared one's soul for." Samara said in a sage's voice sounding more matriarchal. Or rather how Kasumi assumed an asari matriarch _should_ sound. Hell, for all she knew putting Morinth down now allowed the Justicar to ascend to the vaulted title and status of matriarch.

"Yeah." Kasumi said lamely. She took one of the sofas that aligned the far wall. She stretched out and moved to activate the graybox's visor but paused. "I think Shep's gonna have her hands full in the next few hours."

"I gather by the tone of your voice and the inflection of your words you are referring to the connection that lies between Jack and Miranda."

"Well yeah. Come on Samara-san you can't tell me you haven't spotted there is something going on between those two. Other than the gerr-arrgg one's Cerberus Cheerleader and the other's the adolescent psychotic-biotic."

"Perhaps it is best that supposition of relations between our fellow crew members be kept at a minimum."

"You know Samara-san you're no fun." Kasumi playfully stuck out her tongue with a cheerful smile and then activated her visor that would fling her mind into old memories.

Samara smirked at the friendly jib. The Justicar actually indulged in the game of 'what do you see?' It was something she had played even in her youth as a maiden running around with merc guilds. She would look at the public traveling to and fro and make up stores about what she saw. It was a way to pass time and train her observational skills. It was a private indulgence and so far, the only one she thought to share the pastime with was Shepard.

But Shepard had that affect on the people closest to her. She was a tractor beam or more like the gravitational pull of a singularity field. She drew people in and held them there—willingly, gaining their lambent every-present loyalty. Samara could only pray to the Goddess that this affect spread towards the inevitable quarrel that was only cusping on the horizon betwixt the young Miranda and Jack.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME

Of course Q.O. main stock of booze was mostly asari with a hefty stash of rynol which was nothing short of krogan gut-rot and whatever crap turians and quarians guzzled. But hell the blues knew how to brew their shit. The mead from some weird-ass monastery was strong as hell even if it was very sweet. Not to say Shepard ignored human booze. There was a good stock of brandy, whisky, wines, and beers, but Jack decided to stay with the sweet shit. On a moment of inspiration Jack decided to lace the mead with three shots of honeyed Jack Daniels. It was mostly because of the name.

After five such tankards EDI piped up reminding Jack that the women's restroom was on the starboard side of the ship, Jack promptly told the all-seeing-all-intruding AI to shove a hyper-spanner into her matrix. She slammed down a sixth tankard and that was her undoing.

Biotics allowed Jack to absorb alcohol at greater rates and swifter than norms, but sometimes there was a little too much in her system. Jack dashed from the lounge and barely made it to the head. She didn't care that it was the males or that she had just emptied her gullet in one of the urinals. She glared at a stunned corporal, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stomped back out.

The shaking hand of the corporal moved to the urinal Jack had just used to empty her stomach and flushed. His nose wrinkled and he forced himself not to gag in reflex when the glop in the bowl of the urinal didn't go down. It was just his luck. Wordless he moved to the cleaning closet in the head and retrieved the necessary items he'd need to clean the mess. No one appreciated the corporals who guarded the halls of _Normandy_. He might as well as be wearing a fracking red shirt.

Well that was not entirely true. Every time he paused in his patrols when Shepard came down to the mess, she always nodded at him and returned his salute. A couple of times she even smiled in his direction. As he cleaned every centimeter of the urinal he tried to imagine Shepard smiling at him in appreciation for his efforts. It made things—better. He even imagined Shepard commending him verbally for his efforts and for his discretion for one of the members of her flagship team and he stood just that much taller.

Jack wandered out of the men's head and looked towards the mess; her stomach would not take any sort of grub. She already puked everything she had in her gut in the piss pot in the guy's shitter. At one time the Cheerleader might have claimed the larger XO quarters for herself that was tucked in the corner, but that was now occupied by Scar-Face and Sparks. Lawson had her 'private' quarters located on the shuttle deck. Jack's lips pulled into pernicious grin as she recalled that the quarters were once made into a makeshift brig.

Jack wanted answers. Needed them. Answers that Teltin didn't completely give her. Making a better biotic, a more powerful one…those were hollow answers. Jack needed to know why as much as Aresh wanted to know. The Cheerleader said the place went rogue, but Jack didn't buy it. Those needle men were loyal to TIMmy through and through. Jack wanted the fucking Cheerleader to admit it. Just to say the words.

When she came into the small quarters her face eroded into a mask of acrimony. She looked at the dark-haired Australian with eyes that bore scathing fury and ridicule. Whatever buzz Jack had gained by the rapid consumption of alcohol was waning. Her biotic amps processed the booze swiftly. Come morning she wouldn't even have a hangover.

The Cheerleader had been expecting her. That much was obvious. Jack continued to stare and Miranda continued to pretend the intrusion was insignificant. It was a common dance between them. By acknowledging the fact such visits were actually welcomed was to recognize there was something growing between them that had nothing to do with mutual distrust and loathing. That day had long since past. And neither woman wished to name the day that it had happened.

Miranda glanced at her intruder and tried to construct her features into an expression of indifferent concern. Something that had been expected of her not only by Shepard but strangely by Lawson herself. It was strange to Miri to admit to herself that she was indeed concerned for Jack.

Miranda tried to imagine a day if ever it were to come when she came face to face with her father. What then would she do? And what would come after such an encounter? Miri figured she would be as Jack was now, dazed from a drunken stupor laced with anger, relief and an overwhelming since of what could only be expressed by an 'ahhhhhhhhhhhhggggg!'

"You're beyond drunk." Lawson said crisply.

"Good observational skills Cheerleader. Your Illusive Man teach you that or was it all that super DNA crap Daddy dreariest put into your petri dish?"

The words were deliberately made to provoke Lawson into retaliation. A dozen different words and responses rippled through Miri's mind. Shepard's orders to make things right between her and the ex-con tempered her tone. Answering in kind to Jack's baiting wouldn't help.

"I have my own skill sets, my own talents." Miranda said simply.

Jack smirked. "Yeah I know. Care to put those to use?"

"Not until you brush your teeth."

"Easily done, where's your toothbrush?"

"I'm not going to let you use my tooth brush." Miranda scowled, disgusted at the thought.

"Why not? You can just get a new one from Requisitions."

Miranda offered a tired expression that said: go ahead. "Fine, but _you_ can get me another."

Jack shrugged indifferently. "Fine." She picked up both toothbrush and toothpaste then took the goblet of wine Miranda had been sipping from, dipped the brush into it and started to scrub her teeth.

Miranda had even a more disgusted expression crawl onto her face. When Jack spat back into the goblet she turned away. "Do you have to do that?"

"You wanted clean teeth."

Any surge of heat and passion Miranda felt stirring had all but evaporated. "You didn't come down here for a toss between the sheets. What do you really want?" She pressed for an answer.

There was a deep pain in Jack's chocolate brown eyes. "I want you to say the words, Cheerleader. You know what happened down there, you know what Cerberus did to me. You heard it all, saw it. Admit it. Just say it! Admit what they did was wrong!"

Miranda turned seething. She felt attacked from all angles. She knew the crews feelings about Cerberus, Shepard made it loud and clear about how she felt, and Jack. Of course Jack…had it worse. Guilt and rage rippled through Miranda in equal portions. At war with one another. In the end it was rage that took over the battleground.

"It wasn't Cerberus, not really."

"The hell it wasn't!" Jack snarled.

"You heard what they said down there. They were hiding things from the Illusive Man…"

"Yeah like not getting the results he expected. Say the goddamm words Miri! Say them!" Jack snapped. "Tell me what Cerberus did to me, to all those other kids was wrong!" Jack's body was burning with barely leashed dark energy; it pulsed and surged as a living thing.

Only very rarely had Jack ever uttered her nickname. This had been the first time in months that the soft name passed Jack's lips. The sound of it shocked Miranda.

"What happened to you was terrible, Jack…" She reached out to touch the younger woman on the shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. It only served to anger Jack further.

"Touch me again and I'll put you through the fucking wall, Cheerleader!" The rage overwhelmed Jack. She slammed a small table into the wall barely missing hitting Miranda.

"HEY!"

Both heads turned to see Shepard standing on the threshold of Lawson's quarters. Her own anger ever present, the damned AI must have said something to her or the perv Joker must have called in the single woman Calvary

"What in the hell is going on here?" it was an order.

"I came here wanting her to admit what happened down there was wrong. She wouldn't!" Jack turned to Miranda and then back to Shepard. "She won't admit Cerberus was wrong!"

Miranda turned to pin Jack with a glare. "I don't know what exactly happened down there, but clearly _you_ were a mistake." The innuendo was clear enough.

"Fuck you!" Jack reared back to release a biotic punch but was stopped by Shepard's hand upon her wrist.

"Enough both of you. This ends now! Our enemies are the Collectors, not each other. We work as a team or this won't work. I will not allow the Collectors or Reapers to triumph because my people are locked in squabbling with one another like children."

Shepard ground her teeth against one another: "What went down at Teltin was an abomination, Miranda admitted as much to me. And Jack storming into Miranda's private space like some booze addled thug intent in slamming her into the bulkhead isn't helping, things."

Both women looked away, ashamed and secretly amused at the phrasing of slamming each other into a bulkhead. In the past being slammed up against the bulkhead had helped things, considerably.

Jack shook her head, frustrated. She started to storm out of the quarters but was stopped short by Shepard's hand on her arm. "Jack…you okay?"

"Just fucking dandy. Don't worry so much, I'll be there to kill the bugs for you." She glared at Lawson, "I'll play nice." she ripped her captured arm from the Spectre's grasp and left.

When she had gone Miranda looked to Shepard. "She's unstable."

"Yeah wonder whose fault that is?"

At the N7's sharp tone Lawson closed her eyes, and in that tiny fraction of a moment she heard Jack's raspy voice tell them how she thought the room beyond her cell was the rest of the world. How she pounded and pounded upon the glass, and screamed just to be heard, to have human contact

Shepard shook her head. "I told you to settle things, not to escalate them. All you had to do was to tell her what she needed to hear, what you needed to admit for both your sakes.

A wise man once said that you should never believe a thing simply because you want to believe it. You said it wasn't Cerberus, not really. But we both know that isn't true."

Miranda gave Shepard a quizzical look, wondering who the Commander had been quoting.

"I know…"

"Then why didn't you simply tell Jack that?"

There was no answer.

Shepard looked disgusted. "You know there will come a time Miranda, when your loyalty will be put to the test. Sooner or later you're going to have to choose which of the two commanders you follow; you can't be loyal to both of us."

"My loyalty to the mission or to you hasn't wavered, Commander." Lawson admitted softly.

"Hmm…." Shepard cocked her head to the side in such a slight way its meaning could not be missed. It said prove it. Prove you are not loyal to Cerberus. She said nothing as she turned and departed the makeshift quarters.

When she had gone Miranda looked up to the ceiling of the shuttle deck, her eyes automatically following the conduits, power cables and piping. Shepard's unvoiced challenge caused the **Thing** to rise.

There was full truth in Miranda's statement that she was loyal to the mission to stop the Collectors and to go to the Omega Four Relay. She was loyal to Shepard if for nothing that the N7 Commander had saved Oriana and insured that her adoptive parents were also safe and the family whole.

But then there was The Illusive Man. He had given Miranda purpose, a cause. Yes he remarked on her superior genetics; never let her forget that she was humanity's perfection. But with each reminder Miranda felt lessened. She had never gained her superiority honestly, not like Shepard; she had been given it by her father's tapering with genetics.

Shepard never commented on her genetics or her perfection past that first conversation. In the Spectre's presence Lawson never felt diminished that she was more than her engineered genetics. And when she had gained the disapproval of Commander it was a grievous wound. In the very rare instances when she had gained the same thing from The Illusive Man, Miranda had made reparations as well as could e but she never felt as if were emotionally bleeding out as she did today.

Looking at the wine glass with her toothbrush still jutting out of it like some bizarre swizzle stick Miranda wrinkled her nose in digest. Her disfavor was not reserved simply for the befouled toothbrush and wasted wine but for the moments that had followed the borrowing of the toothbrush.

Jack had been in a hell of a state when she intruded on Miranda's peace. No doubt the ex-con had been extremely drunk before she had vomited all the booze she had indulged in. Hopefully the younger woman had made it to the woman's head before her stomach had emptied

The past indeed had cast very long shadows. Made darker still by the needless argument.

Why hadn't I simply told Jack what she wanted to hear? Why did it feel like such a betrayal to say those words, to even think it? Her hand raised to her collar-bone and froze.

' _We must insure all adhere to the axiom: Obedience breeds discipline. Discipline breeds unity. Unity breeds Power. Power is life. Life is humanity's survival. Survival is Cerberus. Cerberus breeds obedience'_

Just as Jack had been conditioned by Cerberus, so had Miranda.

Cerberus was wrong. To think of the words felt like burning acid in the mind.

"Cerberus was wrong." To say the words felt like bile in the throat.

"Cerberus **is** wrong." to mean the words felt like freedom.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME

Marginally mollified that at least the two women were no longer at each other throats and were willing to see the mission out Shepard made her way through the ship heading for solace her quarters offered. Indeed, the N7 reminded herself that despite the lack of a congenial outcome of the confrontation she still held the loyalty of both women.

It was so hard to fathom a life in a cell for sixteen years. Let out only to be experimented on by the 'needle men' in the 'bad place' or pushed to attack other kids. Taught to kill and award if she did, punished if she didn't. Sixteen years of that, only to escape, captured once again, gang raped and sold into slavery.

Jack suffered betrayal after betrayal. Was it any wonder the young woman wasn't in a very good head space? Of course, she needed to hear that the people that did this to her were wrong, that she had some sort of validation. Shepard giving Jack a since of true purpose is one thing but that wasn't what had been needed. Now…

Well now not much could be done now that Miranda had denied Jack even the simplest of balms against the grievous wounds inflicted upon her by the monster cooperation. For now, at the very least there was a tentative peace between both women. It would have to be enough.

Without realizing she had arrived, Shepard was standing before the large bay door to the Captain's loft. There was one last mission to be complete before the Normandy could even dare to venture beyond the Omega Four Relay. They still needed the Reaper IFF. But boarding a derelict Reaper wasn't something Shepard was too keen on.

Admiralty Shepard had tried of thinking of ways to eschew going to the Thorne system of and the brown dwarf Mnemosyne. But dedication to duty prevented any such indulgence in so tempting dereliction. Not even the missions of pursuing the lost Dr. Chandana could be used as an excuse. They had been completed. Shepard was looking at the proof of the completed Firestorm missions.

The orb on the table that responded only to her touch had gone from several meters in diameter to the size of a miniature basketball—the sort used in gaming arcades. Proof Shepard idly thought that the Prothean beacons truly had changed her brain chemistry. There was a gentle hum to the chrome orb when ever Shepard touched it, a sort of 'whaahoome' sound emanated.

It was not unlike the orb found on Eletania in the Hercules System in the Attican Beta cluster. That lead Shepard to think of Shi'ara in another light, not the fact that yes Shepard had had sex with the woman but the fact that the Consort had some strange connection to Liara's creation. Of course, Matriarch Aethyta was the dominating siring parent in Liara's conception but still Sha'ira had been present during the melding.

Liara and Aethyta both persisted in claiming that Aethyta was Liara's 'father' and not Shi'ara who was only there to as the matriarch put it enjoy the ride. Who was Shepard to argue? It wasn't like asari paternity could be proven or disproved irregardless.

Not like the Commander's own paternity. That was yet another headache and one Sam was more than happy to ignore, and often medicate by indulging in the original draft of whiskey. Something she was going for right at this very moment. It _had_ been a long day. She cracked the small plastic tray of tiny ice cubes she had withdrawn from the freezer drawer in the mini-fridge and plopped them one by one into the glass.

In many ways Sam thought it a relief not to be genetically linked to retired Major John Sheppard. She poured the booze from a crystal decanter into a hand-blown glass snifter and listened as the ice clinked against the sides. She always loved that sound.

John never wanted kids, hated them in fact. He barely tolerated his freak 'daughter' (guess its really step-daughter, Sam added as a bitter after thought) as it was. Hell, the bastard wanted to get rid of her the first moment Sam's biotic abilities manifested.

The hand that was reaching for the glass froze. Her mind with distorted memories surfaced. There were snatches of an overheard conversation after a massive biotic flare-up when she had just turned thirteen. Ever since she could remember Mom and John (he had forbidden her from calling him Dad or Daddy when she became seven. It was either Sir or John) were always bickering -mostly about her and mostly especially about Sam's biotics.

"… _.they have schools, places that can deal with this sickness," John Sheppard said._

" _It isn't some goddamn sickness John. She's a biotic. It isn't her fault. Stop treating her as if it is. And stop blaming me."_

" _Biotics_ _ **is**_ _a sickness Hannah! She isn't normal…she will never be normal! She IS a sickness. Hell, the little freak can't even be a normal in other ways. I know she's a fucking dyke."_

 _Sam winced when she heard the slap. She knew her mother had backhanded John. It took a lot to piss her mom off that much; Sam had only seen her strike a batarian like that once when they were on a space station._

" _You say anything like that, think anything like that again Jonathan Sheppard and I swear to my ancestors' spirits we're through," Hannah snarled. "I swear it!"_

" _Then maybe we should be Hannah._ _I didn't sign on for the long term, anyway. And maybe Hackett should be here and not me. I told you I never wanted a brat. I'd go along with the charade of our 'marriage' as long as there were no kids. Then you come along with a belly full of kid and top of that she turns out to be a freak. I did the noble thing and let it slide, let people think I squirted her into you. She's Hackett's blood not mine."_

" _Hate it or not but you're the only father she knows, John."_

" _Not by choice! I only did that to save all our fucking reps, yours, Hackett's and mine. Don't you go flaunting 'responsibility' at me woman. I have no responsibility to the kid! None!"_

" _No, you don't. I never forced you to, never even asked you to. In truth, I really didn't want you to. You could have walked, let people believe I stepped out on you, or better yet Sammy was made in a Petri-dish. But you chose to stay. You chose. Remember that part."_

 _He took a deep sigh._ _"Maybe you're right; get her the amps. But you know I'm right as well. We can't keep hiding this_ _ **thing**_ _that's wrong with her. You want me involved, because the kid thinks I'm her dad? Fine. Then I vote, we need to send her away to one of those institutions. They have this program called BAaT…"_

" _Brain camp? You_ _ **do**_ _know it's run by turians? No, I won't send my Sammy there. Not only no, but hell no. No turian will get their talons on my little girl. Do you think for one moment they won't do something to our children because of the war? If you don't then you're a fool." Hannah's voice became dangerously low._

" _Then there are other choices. Han, be reasonable and hear me out. I was approached by an officer from the Cerberus project. He somehow knew about the kid's powers. He said there is a special program for kids like her. They're looking for biotic kids." he suggested. "They are more than willing to take the kid. He said she could go under a special scholarship; we wouldn't even have to pay for it. Plus, no alien interference. It's for the kid's own good. Way I see it, its win-win."_

" _Cerberus? That's a worse idea than Brain Camp! What in the hell do a bunch of radical thinking xenophobes want with biotic children anyway? I may not trust the turians fully but I won't let those Cerberus assholes touch_ _ **my**_ _Sam. No one takes my daughter from me, John. No one!"_

" _Then I'm done, Hannah. With all of it. I'll get a transfer—somewhere planet-side. Far from any spaceport you might dock with. I doubt Hackett will have any issue with it. He'll be glade to be rid of me just like he was with Zabaleta. And because I'm so goddamned deep in this shit now until the kid's eighteen as far as the Alliance Brass is concerned we're only separated because of work assignments. I sure as hell don't want my pay-packet to be docked for child-support for a fucking kid that ain't mine."_

" _Agreed. Until the transfer comes through I suggest you take furlough."_

Sam's mind reeled as it came hurling back to the present with the sudden force of a biotic slam. She had been thirteen during that moment in her past. Had John had his way and sent her away to the Teltin facility, would she then been pitted against Jack. The younger woman was already there, granted she was all of five but still the she was the favored subject. Sam would have been nothing more than fodder used to increase Jack's power, just like all the others had been, others like Aresh.

How strange fate turns its wheels. Instead of becoming a victim of Cerberus or even of 'Brain Camp', Mom had gotten a private tutor from the Asari Republic As it turned out Sam's teacher came from none other than Matriarch Benezia T'Soni's own bastion. Fate is indeed a queer thing.

Sam did two things. She knocked back the drink in one gulp then slammed her eyes shut as a shiver of the booze's potency washed over her. By three she was ready to confront her mother. Then thought better of it. Instead she slammed three whiskies down hard and fast more until her mind rendered everything into very simple terms of putting more stuff in the thing that holds more stuff, and slammed down three more.

Then the room spun in topsy-turvy circles Sam landed face-first on her bed and decided to fuck the **Thing**. It hadn't been imported for all these years, it wasn't important now. Mom was mom Sam loved and respected her. Ma always made Sam feel amazing, that she could do anything. And in that moment Sam wanted to be that for her daughters. To make them feel amazing, wonderful—that she could do anything. Be anything.

Hackett well he was the Admiral whom she admired most. That didn't change. Besides thinking of Hackett as her Admiral rather than Dad …well her brain didn't fathom Dad. She never actually had one. Not really. Dad was just a made-up word.

Sam rolled over and looked up at the ceiling porthole watching the stars fly by in ribbons of white light. Looking out at the void Sam decided two things. Hindsight was only there to help you move forward. And people, well people don't change no matter what age or time they're born in only their version of the past does.

And Sam decided her version of the past was fine just as it was. John Sheppard wanted a transfer because his 'daughter' was a biotic freak. Ma had a lot of late night staff meetings with Hackett because that's because what CO's did with their XO's. Nuff said. Past was just fucking fine where it was. Don't go stirring up shit that doesn't need to be stirred up.

She'd be _the Dad_ to her daughter, Mamma, Ma, Arda, Ada… She would _**be**_ that person. Hackett, John Sheppard…fuck'em both, she'd show both men what being a _**Dad**_ was. She'd show them how it was done! She'd show them!

Her call when it was made was to her wife.

She had to tell her babies that they were amazing, they were remarkable. And that she was proud of them, so very proud. And most importantly that she loved them. She was their _**Dad**_ and goddess damned proud having the privilege of being so.


	5. Project Overlord

Chapter 5: Project Overlord

Rendezvousing with Tali and Garrus along with three other members of the crew was easier do to the proximity of the Perseus Vail to the Far Rim. The Mass Relay connections linked the Far Rim to Vail, Caleston Rift, Hades Nexus, the Omega Nebula, Pylos Nebula and the nebula given the name of Phoenix Massing.

It was here in Phoenix Massing that part of the _Normandy_ crew namely Thane, Mordin and Samara went chasing after yet another failed Cerberus operation code-named Project Firewalker. They had departed at the same time as that farce of a trial on the Flotilla was happening.

According to the email from Cerberus the survey ship _MSV Rosalie_ had apparently gone missing. Doctors Manuel Cayce and Robert O'Loy were aboard the ship which was last seen near the planet Zeona (Elysta system of the Ismar Frontier). It was on Zeona that the Project Firewalker was field-testing the Hammerhead planet-side exploration rover. And since the _Normandy_ was in the neighborhood (relatively speaking) could they check it out?

On the surface Phoenix Massing was a fairly boring nebula, there was a small elcor presence on Salahiel and the scrabbling inhabitants of Aite. Other than those two 'colonies' the nebula was bereft of any major originations exploiting its untapped resources. Not even the geth activity that occasionally spilled over into the nebula from the Vail took any note of said resources.

Of course, that was why Cerberus was out here with two of their Projects and of course both failed.

The Typhon system had a singular planet of interest named Aite. Like most Golden-worlds Aite was a great deal like Earth with a variety of habitable land masses ranging from deserts to jungles to tundra. Faint rings encircled it not unlike those of Uranus, unusual for a non-giant planet say like Saturn. The rings contained rocks up to a meter in length and a wide dust cloud that stretched nearly 23,000 km from the centre of the planet.

The data scrolled up on the galaxy map making careful note of this impressive celestial phenomenon, however was dwarfed by the fact that Aite's largest moon, Lirate, was in an unstable orbit and according to the scans by astrophysicists the moon was predicted to impact the planet within the next two centuries - meaning that any Aitian venture was living on borrowed time. Colonial population and investment were of less magnitude than other garden worlds, which is why no doubt that Cerberus decided to build one of its infamous research facilities there.

There was in fact a colony of 1,540,000 people living close to the disputed capital of Adrasteia. Shepard noted in the probe's scans that Aite's day length was practically the exact same as Earth's. The variant in gravity was minimal to Earth's norm and the surface temp was a balmy 20c.

The popular add from Colonial affairs marked the place as 'Two beautiful moons, one spectacular ring, zero neighbours.'

The Spectre ran a calloused hand over her dark locks. "Yep, just perfect for one of TIMmy's creepy experiments. I mean what could possibly go wrong way-out in the ass end of space with a Project called Overlord?"

"Commander?" Kelly glanced up to the older woman, whom she still fantasized over, almost nightly despite the fact she knew the Spectre would never see her more than anything but a cheerful Yeoman.

"It's nothing, Kelly." Shepard tossed a half-hearted smirk to the redhead. Looking at the blue-green orb represented on the Galaxy Map: The Commander rubbed the back of her neck once more. From the brief handed to her by TIMmy the place had gone dark. No contact, no reports-nothing. Furthermore, TIMmy was positive the place hadn't been hit by the Collectors. At least not yet. He wanted Shepard to investigate.

The Commander only complied with the 'request' because one: she wanted to know what the hell Overlord was and how it was going to be used inevitably against the Alliance and her allies. _'Make humanity great again', my ass_ This time Shepard made sure she kept the thought to herself.

Two: Shepard had since her hunt for Saren vowed to shut down any Cerberus facility that crossed her path. So whatever reasons this place went dark, Shepard was going to make damn sure it stayed that way.

Three: The Council and Anderson / Hackett would be given any and all information gleaned from this place.

Now the team. She'd need a tech-quite possibly two. So that was Tali and Kasumi. If anyone could hack into any system it was the black-hooded thief. Facing opposition – she wanted a heavy hitter, that was either one of three. Zaeed. Nope no good. She needed something more amenable to not destroying everything on the spot so that took out the old merc and Grunt. Maybe Thane?

Shepard locked that last name in the back of her mind. Jack or Samara would do - you couldn't jam biotics like you could tech. But with Jack you had all that hate for Cerberus coiled up like a live bomb just ticking away ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Samara had a far cooler head but with the Code...things could become complicated. Granted the Justicar had made the vow of Subsumation but still...Complicated.

And considering this place was Cerberus, Shepard knew she needed Miranda to help her not only gain access to Cerberus computer systems but she might be needed as a presence. One that other agents in the rogue black-ops organization feared and respected in equal quantities.

Normally Shepard took only two or three at the most with her on ground mission. This time she made room for four. If this was anything like Horizon or the Collector ship Shepard toyed with the idea of using her full squad which was why she had them all on standby.

In the end Shepard decided to go with her 'hoodies' Kasumi and Tali. Rounding out with Miranda and finishing with Jack. Working together so soon after their blow-out would force them to at the very least cooperate and be cohesive, if only to complete the mission. And maybe just maybe seeing yet another failed project of Cerberus could force Miranda Lawson to admit not only to Jack but to herself that Cerberus is a mistake. That they are indeed on the wrong side of history.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

Almost as soon as the shuttle landed a voice crackled over the head set: male, British by the accent and highly educated if his diction was anything to go by. *Thank god you came! My name is Dr. Gavin Archer. The situation is urgent- we're facing a catastrophic VI breakout. I'll explain the details later, but you must retract that transmission dish! * This Archer fellow was sounding more and more panicked. *The controls aren't far from your position. You have to hurry! *

Shepard took very careful note of what the man said VI breakout not AI. There was a very significant difference. AVINA on the Citadel was a VI whilst EDI and the geth were both AIs.

"He's lying." Tali said pointing out what Shepard already suspected. "Then again he's Cerberus so of course there are lies. It's one of the things they do best. Lies, disinformation and distraction." Everyone including the Spectre turned their gaze to Miranda but no one said a word. "No VI can break their programming parameters. They are simply not capable of that sort of complex 'thinking.' That is the purview of an AI."

"Why should we help these mother-fuckers at all?" Jack demanded.

"Because Cerberus fuck-ups always tend to hurt the rest of us. And they have high reluctance to accept culpability. In fact, they never own up their mistakes- they excuse it away." Shepard answered evenly. "Here's an example: They let husk experiments get out of hand and a whole colony was laid to waste.

"And of course, Cerberus didn't give a damn about the innocent lives taken. To them sacrifices are always necessary. They keep telling themselves this in hopes it helps those with a shred of consciousness left sleep at night."

Shepard gave a very pointed look to Lawson. "Their excuse. 'The husks were never really alive anyway'. Never mind the human casualties the colony of the dead caused. Hell, when we were there, it seemed Cerberus deliberately allowed the attacks to happen just to see how Reaper husks were made.

"Same story with the thorian creepers and the rachni. All three ventures were a deplorable failure and we of the original _Normandy_ had to swoop in and clean it up. Whatever this screwed up 'Project Overlord' is we have to end it here and now. Even if it means bombarding the planet and every single Cerberus operative still alive from orbit lest the AI escapes into the extranet."

"Dead Cerberus assholes? Count me in" Jack said crisply. "They all deserve to burn."

"I agree." Tali avowed as did Kasumi though the other hooded woman said nothing.

Miranda stayed wisely mute. She after all had been the one to tell Shepard the husks were not alive whiles completely ignoring the lives of the colonists the husks either killed or Cerberus used to create the husks on the imported Dragon's Teeth.

As the four approached they took very careful note of the building. From the outside there seemed to be no external damage of any kind. One could easy discount the quietness and lack of activity including absentee security forces to furlough or some other benign reason.

To the left was a large bay window that overlooked the LZ, from their vantage point the room had all the bearings of a command center for this section of the base. The right wing had no such large scenic widows. No doubt it was the right wing not the left that lead to the CIC for the satellite dish comms-array. They could see the colossal disk looming over the door.

Once they entered a female voice gave a canned warning that weapons simply were not allowed within the facility. A warning the _Normandy_ team chose to ignore. What could not be ignored were the bodies of the dead or even the burning furniture. The stink of dead flesh and duroplast was enough to wrinkle the nose. It was not the first time Tali was thankful she could turn off the olfactory sensors in her suit. Though she did feel a pang of regret for her fellow teammates whew did not have such a luxury. Their hardsuit helmets turn out toxins not necessarily the stench of decay and charred furniture.

Descending down the stairs Archer once again addressed them. No doubt he had access to security cameras the rogue 'VI' hadn't yet seized. *Over here on the monitor. *

Shepard approached the flat screen and was rewarded with seeing a man about ten or fifteen years her senior. He was wearing not the typical black, yellow and gold of a Cerberus uniform but white and blue of Alliance science divisions. Maybe he didn't like the color scheme either, Shepard thought.

*Ah there you are. I've locked myself in the computer room on the far side of the base. There are geth on the loose. *

"Keelah!" Tali swore "Bosh'tet Cerberus goons playing with things best left alone. First EDI now this? What are they up too?"

Shepard silenced the younger woman with a slightest wave of the hand. She needed to hear what Archer had to say.

*A rogue VI programme has seized control and... I've lost a lot of friends today. I'd hate to see you join them. *

"Then perhaps you can stop with the lies, Dr. Archer. We both know this is no mere VI. AVINA never went on a rampage killing people. This has all the hallmarks of a rogue AI. Trust me I've met my fair share of them." Shepard said broking no room for denials.

*Yes. Alight. It's not just a simple VI but it's not an exactly an AI either. Please, watch yourselves. *

Shepard turned to her team. "Lets' do this."

"Why are we always cleaning up Cerberus crap?" Jack grumbled as she followed the Spectre around the receiving room.

"Because we're the heroes." Tali commented dryly which she received a half grin from Shepard.

The 'VI' had locked all doors with an algorithm that cycled too swiftly for either Tali or Kasumi to break or at least with their current equipment.

Shepard had a far more effective and immediate solution. She lifted her N7 Eagle and shot out the window. She turned back to her people with a shrug and hopped into the control booth.

"Dig into the logs and see what our little deviant 'friends' have been up to." Shepard gave the order not caring who carried it out. She herself scoped the room. The room had a table with three chairs around of couple tables and bay window that seemed to overlook a storage facility garage. The only thing in the room beyond was a transport truck and several durasteel containers holding who knew what.

It was Miranda who accessed the computer banks and played the latest file. The voice from the logs belonged to Archer: 'Status report: Please inform the Illusive Man we've made great strides in our research. His doubts about the lack of progress are unwarranted. A demonstration is forthcoming.'

"Great just great. Sounds just like those assholes. Those fuckers definitely like their demonstrations." Jack sneered. "Gotta wonder how many demonstrations they filmed and shipped to TIMmy having me kill other kids after they pumped me full of chems. God, I hate those mother fuckers!"

No one said anything, sometimes it was simply better to let the ex-con rant. Better for everyone, that way, not unlike letting the young tattooed woman have her hidey-hole without any kind of through-traffic.

They exited the only door in the room that had previously been locked. It was locked, wasn't it? Strange...

Turning to the right Shepard led her squad past another set of blast doors into the command center for the comms-satellite and dish control from here they were able to extend the bridge controls to the dish hub.

Still needing facts that Archer was either unable to more likely unwilling to disclose Shepard decided to tap into all mission logs. She needed a better sense of what they were going to face. Other than free-roaming geth that was. Geth were not an issue for several years now they've been battling the clankers and have become quite adept at it. This new 'VI' or rather now AI was new.

Archer's log was nothing more than a passive reassurance to all project personnel about handling live geth, he promised the rewards were far greater than the risks involved. He ended his statement with 'Someday your sons and daughters will thank you.'

"Ch'ha right." Shepard shook her head. Dealing with geth was never going to turn out favourably. Not unless one of the clankers broke away from the Consensus and decided to fight the tyranny of the 'Old Machines.'

"Freaking dumbasses." Jack said it in one.

Shepard inclined her head and pointed with her chin to the large readout above their heads. It was a wire frame schematic of the dish-relay and points of interests that needed to be targeted.

Tali moved to the controls to retract the dish making it accessible to the bridge controls. The whole room seemed to shake once the massive thing locked into place.

Once it did the screens filled with a defragmented image of a green face. Whatever it was saying was completely unintelligible.

*Damn it! The VI's overridden the controls. We have to stop him—he's trying to upload his program off world.*

Tali shook her head why did aliens insist on giving things like software a proper pronoun? As if they had a true sexuality? VIs-AIs are ITS! EDI was an IT despite the female voice. AVINA is an IT! Geth are ITS. This thing this green-faced HULK image is an IT! Programs do not have genders for the Ancestors sake! If the quarian engineer had one pet-peeve that was it—the gender roleing of software. She never understood in truth no quarian did the compulsion to make AIs or VIs gender specific. The geth were never given such distinction during their creation. Those first engineers never ever referred to the software as he or she. It was always simply a numeral distinction. It was as it should be. It was proper. Software had no true-life so how could it be gendered? Of course there was Chatika...who she um...(cough)...referred to as a girl...

Spun in the internal rant Tali nearly missed Archer's orders. *Destroy the antennae inside the dish. There's a tram on the lower level. Get to it as fast as you can.*

"Okay you heard the man. We do this. Two teams: half clockwise, the half counter, we meet here." she pointed with her right index finger to the central node. "Do what ever is necessary to take it offline."

"Roger that." Tali nodded which was echoed by Miranda and Kasumi with Jack just smirking.

"Love blowing shit up." To prove her point, Jack pointed her pistol at one of the cameras monitoring the room and pulled the trigger. "VI's trying to play eye in the sky. How 'bouts we blind the motherfucker whenever we can." It really wasn't a question.

It was a solid point. Blinding the VI was a good strategy. Most of the cameras had a strange greenish glow about it, as had most of the screens in the room, indicated that they were infected with the VI's presence. It was almost as if it was allowing communication between the _Normandy_ crew and Archer to a certain extent.

Why?

The door opened and the tram went down. Again, the unintelligible buzzing words followed them. But for a second Shepard could have sworn she made out the words. 'Please, make it stop.'

But that couldn't be right. And it also could be right that this VI was feeling fear or pain despite the pitch in its garbled words. She was just anthropomorphizing a machine-no a program. Programs didn't -feel, didn't have true emotion only simulated ones. AVINA's inflections were simply simulated it took a far more sophisticated program like EDI to have true emotions.

So why then did this VI should like it was crying out: 'Please, make it stop!'

Down flights of stairs though corridors, atriums and open chambers the team pushed towards the tram exit / entrance.

The announcements had changed from reminding people that they were not allowed their weapons to telling everyone there was geth activating and they were to remain at their work station until the all clear was given.

"Love how expendable your pals think their workers are." Jack tossed at Lawson.

"As if panic would do any good." the ex-operative shot back. "If they are at their work stations they are less likely to cause a stampede or panic." she looked to Shepard. "The military isn't any different."

"True, but most scientists aren't' leathernecks." Kasumi piped up. "No offence Shep."

"None taken. But Lawson has a point if people are at their work station they are less likely to draw attention from the geth or cause injury to one another in a flight of panic."

"Whatever." Jack pointed to the burnt scarring on the walls and the heads of Cerberus personnel that looked like someone stomped on their heads and popped them like an overripe tomato. "But these bastards didn't feel that way. Not that I give two shits that they're dead."

It was best not to carry on the conversation. Shepard chose to ignore by doing down yet another flight of stairs. As she passed all the flat screen panelling that once might have held data or news feeds were filled with their new green ghost companion. And in the corner of the hall was yet another camera. This time it was Shepard's turn to pop a shot into the lenses.

The doors lead to the mess hall. The announcement changed from 'stay at your post' to announcing the day's lunch menu.

Almost as soon as they entered they were assaulted by an array of geth troopers: rocketeers, hunters, destroyers and flamer units. They had positioned themselves on the facing balcony and within the kitchen proper. The four were struck by a volley of plasma fire, fortunately however the stairwell they were on had a glass partition to take cover behind. It wasn't much but it was better then giving the enemy clean shots.

"Target the Flamers and Rocketeers!" Shepard ordered. "Keep your heads low, stay frosty people!"

Long training whether the team members spent years at Shepard's side or simply months had honed her squad in a very effective fighting unit. The geth were already hacked by the Green-Faced AI aka the HULK but that didn't mean they were immune to tech-assault. Tali and Kasumi unified their assaults with deploying overloads which Miranda aided in.

Tali and Kasumi used energy-drain while simultaneously Jack and Shepard deployed heavy area warps and singularities. Once a geth platform were rendered vulnerable Tali swooped in with her AI hacking. The window was very small and wouldn't last long not with the swift shark-like aggressiveness of The HULK but it was enough of a window for Tali to turn geth against geth: just as she had countless times during the hunt for Saren.

The ring of geth began to converge on them, staggering the attack and trigging bursts at random. Orbiting the _Normandy_ team, the biotics warded off every volley, deflecting them into the faces of the cafeteria surround them or into other clankers. At other times Shepard made no attempt to redirect the attacks, but simply twisted and torqued her rangy body, allowing the bolts to miss her by centimeters. It was the Echo Game, she was becoming as masterful at its complexities as any asari Huntress.

Around the _Normandy_ team, the automata collapsed one after the next, gushing lubricants from holed reservoirs or exploding in a hail of alloy parts, until all were heaped on the ferrocrete floor.

To the back portion of the café where the tram lounge there were several gear-lockers,

aligned seats for those waiting to board the tram or disembark from where they worked, the living quarters or entertainment facilities.

Over the speakers played some sort of classical music that seemed to be warped and warbled as if someone were playing an old fashioned antique tape cassette that got caught in the cogs of the player.

As for the tram itself it was utterly utilitarian with no seats to sit in and more than enough room to transport heavy cargo. The journey was very short, considering but the necessity of the tram was evident as the main station overlooked an expansive ravine of forest and river. It less time it takes to tie the laces of an old boot the tram docked at the dish relay.

It was almost startling when Archer's voice came over the tram's load speakers. *Damn it all... he's aligning the dish to a new upload target! He'll have clear line of sight to our satellite! This is going to be tight!*

*Arriving at dish access.* proclaimed the same female announcer that had been issuing all previous announcements. *Attention satellite broadcast window is opening soon.*

"That can't be good." quibbled Kasumi.

"No, it isn't" Tali agreed.

*All upload data must be approved by your department supervisor.*

"Somehow I don't think that will be an issue for Green-Face." the thief added.

The gale blew as fiercely and frozen as it had on the Dantius towers

Geth on the catwalks, battle

get to the controls that extended the catwalks to the dish proper

Alongside the dish main construct. Shepard issued her teams to the hub center, hear geth click-chatter

Garrus looking through the scope. Targeted on of the geth popping it in the head.

"You see that?" Tali pointed out. "They're not like the ones we fought with Saren, or on the Alarei. They have this sheen about their chassis."

"Green-sheen. Copy that." Shepard said. "Can you override it?"

Tali who managed to hack and override nearly every other mech, Ai and VI they came across shook her head. "Not with the time frame we have, Shepard. I've never seen any programme like this. VI maybe but its thinking is...more than even an AI like EDI. It's more organic than that."

"Like a Reaper?"

"Yes, exactly. This isn't Reaper tech. But maybe influenced by it? We all know Cerberus likes to pirate things and turn it to its own."

"Okay then we do this the old-fashioned way. Lay down as much firepower as possible, use the trip-wires from the omni-bows. Tali use every other trick in the book you and your drones have. I'll take care of the support struts, the rest of you keep the geth off of me. Keep your eyes open for assault drones."

"Roger that."

"Copy that Shep..."

"Understood, Commander."

"I'll pop 'em hard until candy comes out."

*Attention satellite broadcast window is opening soon.*

Shepard sprinted to the first structural support strut. She had no opposition. It was not unlike the first room on the Lunar base where Shepard and her team consisting then of Liara and Tali took out the VI conduits. The first was easy then too and then became increasingly more and more difficult. Shepard had no illusions that it would not be the same now.

Shepard sprinted clockwise to the next strut. She heard behind her the sound of gunfire. None of it even reached her to bombard her barriers and shields. She cast a look over her shoulder and saw that Jack was moving with her, shielding her with a barrier shield. It gave her enough time to reach the second strut.

With each destruction of a platform came an inorganic scream of pain from the HULK. The team didn't break stride or pause in their mission.

"Behind us! Go get them Chatika, good girl! "

"On it! Deploying overload!"

"Oh that had to hurt!"

"Fly bitch."

Shepard did what she did best, a pure artist on the battlefield. A wave-front of cool passed over Shepard with the shade's embrace. She became the turbulent swirl of wind whistling through the towering radio dish, she became the sunlight outside the shadow within. The power of dark energy surged within her granting her body the power to charge past the geth line to the next strut. The action surge granted her the power to use a shadow strike one of the flamers, rendering its shields inert.

A warp-slash took out another's shielding allowing Jack and Miranda to simultaneously use warps and slams against it. Tali and Kasumi peppered remaining geth with a volley from the Locast SMG and a pulse shotgun Tali had taken from the Alarei. Their attacks were aided by Tali's combat drone and tech assaults.

Third strut down. Four more to go. And the geth kept pouring out of the base of the dish. Where ever the HULK was getting the clankers he seemed to have an endless supply.

"Here we go."

"Just a second."

"Cover Shepard."

"Sure thing."

Shepard sprinted ahead to the fifth strut; she took it down and used a biotic charge to take out the sixth and seventh leaving the geth to her team. Sparks flew. The dish shuddered and groaned.

The announcement went from warning about the window of data transfer to warning everyone that the structural integrity of the dish was in-danger as if the team needed to be reminded of that.

Hitting the last support strut destroyed the needle. Over the radio Archer seemed hopeful—ecstatic even. * You've done it! You've severed the link to the satellite!*

The inorganic screech of pain, all faced turned as one and looked up. As the needle came down it tore more of the satellite around them.

Shepard's eyes winded. "Oh you gotta be kidding!" she muttered darkly sprinting away from the falling structure. Her hind brain went back to the Citadel Tower when a chuck of Sovereign landed on her which nearly killed her. Hell a little more than half her body was now cybernetic because of that crash. She had no inkling to add the other half to that cyborg cocktail.

"Move! The whole thing is giving way!" She shouted out, running as fast as she was able. At the edge of the catwalk she used her biotics to launch her forward on to the platform beyond not unlike an asari huntress or Justicar. Kasumi's acrobatics aided her, Jack and Miranda also used their biotic to hurl themselves to the lower platform taking between them Tali. They tumbled and rolled to safety. – Effectively speaking.

Around them in a spiral ring of fiery destruction the whole of the dish collapsed into the ravine far below in an impressively explosive fireball. Black smoke billowed up covering everything and everyone.

Out of the smoke came Archer. "Over here!"

"What the hell is going on around here?" Shepard demanded marching up to the scientist, glaring at him. enough was enough.

Archer looked away, his blue eyes staring in to the sapphire orbs of the Spectre. "Man's reach exceeding his grasp." He waxed poetic. "Come on, I'll explain."


	6. Man's Reach Exceeding His Grasp

Chapter 6: Man's Reach Exceeding His Grasp

Archer led the team back to the entry point, from there they divided into a further two groups with Tali opting to remain with Shepard. She wanted to hear what this bosh'tet human had to say for himself...trafficking with geth. Of all the dumb-ass things to do. But then again this was Cerberus who believed they could subjugate anyone into their 'Grand Army'

Shepard sent a very silent thank you to the younger woman and gave the order without saying a single word that Tali should use her vast knowledge of the geth to dig deeper than this Cerberus lackey was willing to give up.

"You have my thanks, Commander Shepard. You bought us some time, though probably not much. This isn't over yet."

"You certainly owe us an explanation, but first… just exactly who are you?" demanded Shepard."

"Dr. Gavin Archer, chief scientist at this facility...and probably the only one left. As for the explanation. This is Project Overlord. An attempt to gain influence over the geth by interfacing a human mind with a VI. The results have been...less than satisfactory. "

Behind him Tali's metallic voice made a scoffing disgusted sound. Just out of the corner of her eye, Shepard saw the hooded woman shake her head. "That's putting it mildly." came the Engineer's jaded response

Shepard crossed her arms, and found herself agreeing with her Chief Engineer. "I'd have to see what you'd call a disaster." Surreptitiously the Spectre activated her omni-tool not only to record the conversation but she was transmitting it live to the rest of her team. She wanted this fully on record, especially when she made her reports to the Council and Alliance Brass… well mainly Anderson and Hackett.

"You can't dismiss the entire project. We did succeed at least partially." He made a point to avoid all eye contact with the young quarian. "My brother David volunteered to serve as a test subject, but his mind couldn't handle the VI connection." Archer turned from the window and indicated for Shepard to follow him. As he walked he entered the larger chamber with the great bay window the same window they had seen from the reverse side.

From here they could see what the rest of the ground-crew was doing. Jack stood at the head of a dozen or so filled coffins as both Miranda and Kasumi moved the bodies into several more capsules. All told there had to be twenty bodies by now. As far as Jack was concerned one more filled coffin was one less Cerberus lap-dog she had to kill.

One might have thought Miranda would show something over the death of colleagues but with not knowing them personally she had no immediate connection other than they were once Cerberus. The only one not fully disassociated oddly enough was the thief. She seemed a bit disturbed over how many dead there were, yet not necessarily they had died but rather how they had come to their ends.

Shepard's gaze followed Archer's. The man was more clinical as he looked over his deceased colleagues-almost wistfully. It was almost as if he were reading a scary part in a bedtime story written for a child.

"He's like a virus now, infecting our networks and seizing control of any technology he finds. It's why you have to destroy the dish. Imagine if his program got off world." he said referring to his brother.

"What's the worst case scenario?" Shepard cut to the chase.

"A technological apocalypse. Every machine, every weapon, every computer could be turned against us." Archer started pacing back and forth as if standing in a lecture hall and not in the confines of a tech-CIC. "If he hit the extranet, who knows where it would end."

"How does he take control of electronics?" Shepard asked giving a look to Tali who had a very fair idea just how this override was accomplished but the known facts and knowledge they had, the better able they were to face this DAVID-VI. After hearing the HULK had a name Shepard had to force herself not to think of the VI as something akin to AVINA with a bad electrode-day.

Again Archer pointedly avoided looking in the quarian's direction. "This is a hybrid intelligence the likes of which I've never seen. I don't know where the man ends and the machine begins."

Tired of being deliberately overlooked Tali stepped up and pointed an accusatory finger at the human male. "You should have considered that before you started your experiment!"

Archer took a step back. His voice shifted from explanative to defensive. "We couldn't be expected to account for every outcome! Certainly not the abomination David has become."

"They are geth! There is only ONE outcome, you stupid bosh'tet! Or did the destruction of my home planet and the near destruction of the Citadel and the near death of the Council and all souls aboard the _Destiny Ascension_ not clue you in? No of course not. Your Illusive Man wanted all that power, didn't he?"

Archer looked down for a moment, then looked up this time he did look to Tali before returning his attention back to the Spectre. "Davi...the VI has fortified itself in the main laboratory at Atlas Station. It's in lockdown now." He pointed to the large computer terminal with a display screen showing three parallel bars indicating power output / input.

"To enter, you need to manually override security from our facilities in the Prometheus and Vulcan Stations. "

"How does the lockdown work?" Shepard asked.

"It's a fail-safe procedure in the event of an emergency. Normally, all three project leads have to agree to cancel the lockdown." Archer reached the computer panel and turned a handle on a circular valve and pulled it upwards. As soon as he did the amber glow of the top bar decreased and turned green, indicating the lock was thusly removed. "I'm the only one left now."

Archer pointed to his chest. "I can give my authorization, but you'll have to manually reset the other two yourself."

Shepard nodded her understanding but her next question was not of the lockdown or the stations. "And what happens if I have to kill your brother?"

Slowly Archer went back to his desk. He stared at a holo of himself standing next to a much younger bald-headed man-a youth really. In the picture David seemed to be all of sixteen maybe seventeen. By appearances David had autism... which Archer no doubt exploited.

"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that." Archer said taking a seat.

"Before I head out I need a lot more intel. And if _my_ Chief Engineer needs very specific information. You _will_ give it to her." there was no more for arguments. Shepard had every expectation of being obeyed. "Now, tell me more about Project Overlord."

Archer cut a glance to the hooded quarian, his face unreadable as hers. "We wanted to turn the geth's religious impulse into a weapon. When we saw them following Saren, we realized they could be swayed."

Once more Tali made a disgusted sound. "They weren't _swayed_ by Saren." she said slowly as if speaking to someone with less then three digits in their IQ. "It was _**Sovereign**_. A living ship... a very old advanced _AI._ Of course they were 'swayed' by it. Geth are software, they can be overwritten by someone who knows what they are doing and can act swiftly enough. Sovereign was more than capable. All the Reapers are."

"Exactly." Archer said. "And if a _proper_ figurehead was created-a virus with a face, if you will-the geth might be controlled. Didn't you try something similar when you downloaded the VI from Ilos into a geth?"

"We seized a geth _platform_ , not geth." Tali automatically corrected. "Wait, how do you know about that?"

Shepard answered for Archer. "Cerberus has spies everywhere, remember? LT Stevenson?" There was a weighted pause.

Tali didn't need to be reminded it was because of the theater nurse who had been present during those long days of Shepard's surgery and the gestalt's birth between Shepard and Liara. It was because of that nurse who sold out Shepard and because of that Secura was murdered within the womb.

"Doesn't surprise me in the slightest TIMmy knew about Vigil. Nor dose it surprise me that Cerberus went for such an ambitious undertaking." Sheared had continued.

"But don't you see we had to try? It would be the perfect weapon—victory without casualties! We could avoid war with the geth altogether. That was the plan anyway."

Tali winced within her helmet. It was the same argument her father had and it led to his and all those on the _Alarei_ to die as well. Just like here. Man's reach exceeding his grasp indeed. Apparently it went for human men as it did for the quarians.

"I want to know about the stations. Start with this one. What happens here?" Shepard forged on.

"This is Hermes Station, our communications uplink with the wider galaxy. If you hadn't destroyed the dish in time, the outcome would have been catastrophic."

"And the other two stations?" Shepard demanded.

"Vulcan Station is our geothermal plant. It generates power for all four outposts."

 _Smart._ Both women agreed. Power without waste or pollution-always a plus.

"Prometheus Station is a crashed geth ship full of dormant machines. We use them for out experiments."

"Keelah! This is the _Alarei_ all over again!" Tali shook he head. Her father and Cerberus how could they be so alike—to have failed in so very similar circumstances?

Had they been alone, Shepard would have placed a comforting hand upon her wife's Trusted. Instead she gave a soft look that had the same effect. "What can you tell me about Atlas Station?" she asked swiftly as not to allow the Cerberus man to see the hidden communication.

"Atlas Station is the main laboratory where all out VI experiments take place. It's your final goal once you've overridden the lockdown. It is also where my brother...became something else."

Roman myths...Atlas held up the world, Vulcan was the god of fire and Prometheus...well in this case Shepard had a deep feeling it wasn't the actually Roman myth as much as reference to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein...Prometheus Unbound. Artificial life run amok

"So what went wrong with the experiment?" Asked the raven-haired woman.

"David volunteered to interface with the VI to give it genuine consciousness...

Behind Shepard, Tali muttered under her breath. "Yes. I just bet he 'volunteered.' More like was volunteered."

This time both humans pointedly ignored the comment, Archer forged on with his explanation as if he hadn't heard the outburst and Shepard cast a warning look, despite agreeing with it. David was more than likely coheresed into volunteering for this obscene question.

"Theoretically it would have been safe, but...with the artificial intelligence there is no such thing as safe."

Finally he admits it's an AI! This time Tali kept her mouth shut but her body-language said it all. And if the quarian was reading Shepard correctly and by now she had learned to interpret human body language, the Spectre was thinking alone the same lines.

"Then you shouldn't have attempted it." Shepard cast her hand out and waved it across the air to make her point.

"And what if you have never attempted to find the Reapers, Commander Shepard? Where would the galaxy be then? Sometimes you have to ignore the risks"

"That's hardly the same thing!" the Spectre nearly snapped back "I want to end them, end their Cycle of destruction, not control them! If we don't fight—we die!" she shook her head. "One would have thought you people learned about trying to control people as if they were your omni tool. You know like the rachni. Oh hey why not learn from history, like what happened the quarians and the Mourning War. But hey what the hell you're with Cerberus so you people know better, right?"

"Human-computer interface is invaluable to the scientific community, Commander Shepard. We couldn't lose this opportunity." Archer argued.

"I've got news for you Archer, if I'm called into a situation or any Spectre is for that matter, you already lost. Tali, we're going and we're going to put an end to this."

"Aye aye Captain." The title was used just as it had been within the Flotilla.

Once outside Shepard contacted the _Normandy_ calling for all team hands on deck and they were to bring the new Hammerhead. Of course that meant the rest of the crew had to land with shuttles. Once the flagship team assembled Shepard gave them a SitRep.

"Two stations: Tali, you'll head one of the teams and hit Prometheus Station. You'll need a sniper so of course take Garrus. Mordin is added tech support. You know as well as I do how effective tech-explosions work against geth. And you'll need biotics so Thane and Samara will be your back up.

"Jack, Miranda, Kasumi and Grunt, Zaeed you're with me to hit Vulcan. Once each Station has been neutralized, we convene at Atlas. Find whatever Intel you can on the research they were doing here. There has to be more than what the good Doc told us. We all know enough about Cerberus that we weren't told the whole story. And we also know that they more than likely will start it up again, just like they tired with Gillian Grayson...guess you call her Subject 0 - 2.0"

"The Ascension Program." Miranda concluded

"Wait! You said that Ascension was Alliance not Cerberus, Shepard." Jack accused the Commander of betraying her trust.

"It is. And Grissom Academy _is_ safe. And yeah Cerberus tried to covertly influence a young girl named Gillian Grayson since infanthood. They put her in the custody of one of their former agents, a guy named Paul Grayson and he raised her. When she started showing early development on biotics, something that Cerberus engineered, the kid was placed in Grissom Academy. But their sleeper agent in the program was found out and eliminated."

"That's the same girl that fled to the Flotilla." Tali took up the narrative. "Cerberus was hunting her; she was nothing more than an asset to them, albeit a very powerful one. Just property—she wasn't a real person to them. Just someone to program and control.

"Those bosh'tets boarded one of our ships, nearly killed everyone on her to reclaim this girl. They made the mistake to think just because we are forced to live in our suits that the quarian are a weak people. They were wrong."

Jack spun on her heel to Miranda. "Suppose you're going to say what those assholes did to that kid were not Cerberus either-not really or this fucker Archer and what he did to his brother is not really Cerberus?"

"I wouldn't presume." the ex-Loyalist answered. "But accusing me of the crimes that may have happened here and what occurred to that child will not aid us now will it? We can either do something about it, or talk about it. I prefer to act."

"As do I." Shepard said cutting off any further provocation form Jack or anyone else. Strangely the rest of the party had been very silent during the whole exchange. "Two teams, four Hammerheads. According to their motorpool manifest this facility has three of their own."

"Led to believe we had the prototype. Only one." Mordin sounded almost disappointed that the tiny scout vessel they had acquired on Zeona wasn't exactly a one-of.

"Probably is Professor." Garrus chimed in, trying to cheer the other male up. "Then these guys got the first off the line."

"Does it matter if we posses the only unique version of such a vessel or no, if they allow us to achieve our objective?" asked Samara. When no one offered further comment to the Justicar's' question she titled her head in a very matriarchal way that forestalled any further arguments.

"All right people you have your orders and stay frosty. No telling what this David-AI / VI can do. Just like at the dish expect a very heavy resistance at each data cluster you uncover and from each station, especially after we shut it down.

"Probably a lot like shutting down the VI on the Lunar Base. You all remember it became more difficult the further we pressed on and each juncture we shut down. Expect turrets, rocket-drones, kinetic shields, mechs a hell of a lot of geth, especially on Prometheus,

"No doubt DAVID will have the CCTV on us at all times so destroy any cameras you come across. We won't have the time for a hacker's war to override them. According to Archer it didn't mater which one of the facilities they hit first only that they both had to be shut down or they would not be able to access Atlas station. If we could hit it, I'd have a third strike team secure but with the lockdown that's not going to happen.

ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME

Almost as soon as they were out of Hermes Station's motor pool the M-44's VI announced that the geographic conditions indicated there was an aesthetically pleasing view near by.

*You know what I find aesthetically pleasing?* Grunt said from inside the Hammerhead he shared with Zaeed, *all that meat walking around on six legs. Let's hit a few of them and bring something back to the _Normandy_ to munch on.*

As if taking him seriously the vehicle's VI responding in the negative. *Analysis: Defenceless herbivores are no match for guided missiles.*

*Pyjacks ain't either, still fun whacking the shit out of them with AA towers.* the young krogan chuckled. *Besides, I'm hungry.*

*You're always hungry.* Zaeed scoffed.

*Krogan.* Grunt gave a very simple explanation, which got the rest of the team in their various hovercrafts laughing.

"You and Zaeed want to go hunting dull-witted space cows rather than come with us to hit Vulcan Station, go ahead. Just make sure you take out any roving clankers along the way, and we'll need Kasumi." Shepard said.

*Naw, playing with geth in a volcano is way more fun.* Grunt guffawed.

*It's not my idea of a good time.* Kasumi scoffed.

"I'm ready to see what this baby can do. Open her up Shepard." Jack urged child-like. "Come on!"

Shepard craned her neck to look behind her to see that despite being strapped into the gyro-seat Jack used the backs of the two front seats to pull herself forwards as if to will the older woman to hit the turbo by sheer thought alone. The Spectre willingly complied. Truth be told she wanted to see that the M-44 Hammerhead could do, how it measured up to the Mako.

The Hammerhead shot ahead at super sonic speeds, which knocked Jack back into her seat, the gyro-locks working as the craft went from 30 kmh to 120 within seconds.

"Whoohoo! Not bad for a little dinky rover!" the ex-con smirked giddily. "Still has shit-armour plating."

"I was thinking the gun needs work." Shepard shook her dark locks. "It can only swivel vertically. But it has a higher rate of fire than the Mako and has guided missiles. These are even better than those on the Mako."

*Maybe Garrus can calibrate it instead of spending all his time toying with _Normandy's_ main gun." Tali jibbed. *He tinkered with the Makos guns back in the day.*

*Here there wasn't a lot to do on the old SR-1 and besides if I went anywhere near her main guns, Williams would have put a bullet in my fringe.*

*If a rocket didn't kill you by hitting the side if your face, doubt a bullet to the brain would have done any damage.* Grunt commented in a very off-handed compliment to the turian's constitution- or perhaps it was a very strange insult. Either way it got the older male to chuckle.

*What I don't like is this thing will pop like an over heated tin-can. Little shields and no kinetic barriers.* Zaeed grumbled.

*Plus side.* came Mordin * M-44 comes with very sophisticated repair system. Much faster, more efficient than the Mako's reliance on omni-gel. Still must manoeuvre constantly to avoid enemy fire. Very problematic. Good for scouting for mineral deposits, terrain. Not so much as a vehicle of war. Poor design for the infantry.*

"Yeah makes me miss the Mako. Even if she had crappy mass effect aligned thrusters but that baby could climb." Shepard waxed nostalgically. "And she could take a hit."

*Well with you driving she had to.* Garrus jested. * Recall a few times we turned more than a few barrel roll going down some mountain face or another.*

"Shut it. My driving is just fine."

The others laughed.

"You're a crappy driver, Shepard. The only thing worse than your driving is your dancing. " Jack tossed.

"I just feel the love, thanks."

"Don't know how someone who can move like you do on the battlefield but has no sense of rhythm."

"Keep it up Jack and your walking back." The good natured tone was still there, but a tad colder than it had been a moment ago. Still the others in the Hammerhead including Shepard chuckled

*Give me a Tanka, any day.* said Grunt ignoring the digs at his Battlemaster. *Superior armour, guns and what it can't climb it crushes. And sure is a hell of a lot more roomier. This thing is cramped.*

*How are you fitting in there anyway, Grunt?* Tali asked.

*Not very well.* this came from Zaeed. *He's practically taking up two damn seats himself.* there was a sound of scuffling. *Move over you big lummox.*

*You got plenty room, human. Quit your bellyaching.*

*It _is_ a bit tight in here,* Kasumi agreed with. *And the other seat your hogging is mine.*

*You're a small wiry squishy thing, you're fine.*

*Next time Jack rides with you, I'll stay with her Cheerleader.*said the thief.

There was an awkward silence before Shepard spoke again: "You know what I want to get my hands on? One of those new Nomads. Now those...babies can move. All the power of a Mako and the manoeuvrability of this Hammerhead. Tell me that isn't sweet."

*Unfortunately the Council has decreed the prototypes and all proceeding models were all destined for the Andromeda Initiative.* Samara said. *But, I can see the appeal.*

*They get all the cool new toys.* groused the turian. *Why can't we ever get the cool toys? Hell it'll be another six hundred years before they even get to use them.*

*Think the SR-2 counts as a new toy.* Tali said nonchalantly.

*All that flash is fine, but I prefer subtle.* echoed Kasumi. *And the _Normandy_ is a beautiful girl. And she runs so quietly. I'm not used to hearing my own thoughts.*

"Best thief in the business, not the best known." Shepard quoted the thief from their first meeting.

*Exactly.*

*I know what you mean, Kas. Took me a long time to get used to the silent running of the SR1 and the SR2 is just was silent.* Tali agreed. *No ship in the Flotilla runs the quietly.*

Whilst they had been talking the crews had been piloting towards their destinations. Shepard and Zaeed pulled their Hammerheads to an immediate halt as they came up upon a river of magma.

*Well shit.* Zaeed murmured.

*Oh...this is so not good.* Kasumi sounded worried.

*Analysis: debris field provide adequate support for vehicle.*

"This might have been problematic in a Mako; the Hammerhead can handle the leapfrogging. Skiff the surface of those floating rocks, just like skipping stones across a lake."

To demonstrate her meaning, Shepard jumped the hovercraft to the nearest boulder that practically sank as soon as the craft skimmed its surface but the Spectre skilfully 'bounced' the Hammerhead from boulder to boulder before it sank beneath the stream of molten lava.

Zaeed waited until Shepard had her Hammerhead across the river, then he started his run. Hop. Hop Hop-

"Ah...Shit!"

"Watch'it!" Kasumi yelped.

Zaeed spun his head to the hooded woman, "You wanna drive?"

"Yes!"

"Well too damn bad, cuz you ain't."

"Warning, M-44 shields are not conducive to molten lava."

"Ah shut up, stupid machine." Grunt groused then punched the dashboard.

"Hey Dumbass, violence and tech, not fucking good bedfellows." Zaeed snapped his head to the krogan, "Especially when I'm trying to fucking play 'Frogger' in volcano spew."

"Whatever."

"If you weren't bred from a frigging tank, I'd punch your mother."

"Go ahead and try, Shepard will turn you into a mess of spineless bloody goo."

"Of course you're going to call Shepard—mother."

*You do of course realize everyone can hear you.* Shepard shot back.

*HA Ha Ha... Mommy Shepard. That's fucking funny.* Jack snickered

*Yeah? You think so? You know what happens when you say 'Your Mama.' to a krogan.* Shepard challenged.

Silence.

*He—ey, Shep...love your _son_. Good boy-takes after his mother.*

"She's my Battlemaster!" Grunt said defiantly. Then more softly. "Right, Mother?"

*Right.*

There was a lot of laughter.

*Focus.* one word from their Commander was enough to still all any chatter. They all had a job and they knew the score and what must be done. Time for trench / gallows humour was over. Now it was time as the military liked to quip to become frosty.

Once across the lava flow, Shepards' team code locked as Mako moved further into Vulcan station's territory. One of the things that stood out to the Spectre was an unmanned security station which currently and thankfully had dormant security measures. There was also a very peculiar crate that seemed to ready for shipping.

Not taking any chance of missing an opportunity, Shepard piloted her Hammerhead to recover the package. At such time the M-44's AI informed them that the crate was an information package on Project Overlord that other research cells needed to review.

*They are not getting their grungy hands on this." the Spectre said. Instead she'd send the package directly to her wife, then to Anderson. According to the AI, five more such packages remained. This information she passed along to the other teams that said Intel would never be passed to Cerberus. Once collated all the details were to be handed directly to Shepard and no one else.

ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME

*Shepard this is Archer. I'd advise extreme caution; Vulcan Station as I said earlier is our geothermal plant. They stopped reporting in shortly after the episode...* his voice fizzled out into white noise.

The Hammerhead's VI spoke. "Warning: VI's presence with in plant machinery Advise: caution."

The next area seemed to be almost an obstacle course.

Once more the VI spoke. "Scanning area: Analysis: Vulcan station provides adequate velocity to enhance vertical lift."

"This should be fun." Shepard said without sarcasm.

The Spectre piloted the Hammerhead towards the free flowing jets allowing the velocity of the jet stream to repulse the craft upwards to reach the upper levels of the cave system. Once they ascended the Spectre very skilfully dodged, dismantled and shot at the defensive measures DAVID had erected. At each destruction of a turret, there was a garbled mechanical sound of pain as if someone had broken the finger joints of hand with a hammer.

On reaching the upper levels, Shepard guided the two Hammerheads through the tunnels up another level to the same lava river or rather an 'upstream' portion of it. Once across there was yet one more of the vented jet stream to push both vehicles further upwards into the caldera.

Once there, both vehicles came to a rest next to the garage site of Vulcan Station. After disembarking the toneless female voice of the stations AI warned them that the controls were not only offline but that the core systems had been compromised.

Despite the earlier razzing of her piloting skills, Shepard easily and expertly navigated the Hammerhead to one of the inactive jets and waited for the air-vents to open. When it did it the upward thrust against the hull of the ship was not unlike detritus caught in a geyser flow. The Hammerhead launched upwards landing on the upper tier of the venting station and very near the lavafall

Within moments Zaeed, Kasumi and Grunt's vehicle landed at Shepard's starboard side. Neither hovercraft ventured much further for the mouth of the cave system that would take them the rest of the way to Vulcan station was guarded by unmanned turrets. Though saying it was unmanned was a bit relative considering that the VI infection had spread to the turret's CPU and overwritten its Friend / Foe subroutines.

*Time to test out what these puppies really can do.* Zaeed said.

"Fire at will." Shepard gave the command.

With both missile launchers opened the Hammerheads made very short work of the stacked turrets despite being overrun by the DAVID VI. And just as with the geth with the turret's destruction the VI made a chattering noise of pain and anger.

Past that point the cave branched left towards the northwest and right lead back towards the lava flow. Shepard made no comment but steered her craft towards the lava.

"Looks like we play 'Frogger' again," she said "if we want to get up there"

*Hell of a way to get to work in the morning.* quibbled Zaeed.

"What dumbass engineer decided with was the best way to get into the plant?" Jack echoed the sentiment behind the old merc's words.

*Cerberus.* answered Grunt.

"Yeah well they royally fucked up." Jack hurumphed.

*Including themselves.* Zaeed followed.

Miranda was long past rising to the bait every time someone knocked the organization she had dedicated the better part of her life to.

"More than likely the operatives within this station flew in via shuttle, not a Hammerhead," her tone offhand as if it was more than obvious that was how the station was crewed.

Shepard didn't say a word as she parked the hovercraft just outside the stationed entrance. Almost as soon as she and the rest of her team touched ground a mechanical female voice announced yet another warning about the automated controls being offline and that the core systems had been compromised.

"Good bet everyone in there is toast." Grunt jibbed to which only Jack snickered. "Get it toast, because of the lava?" he chuckled.

"Not funny Grunt." Chided Shepard, however true the quip had been. "You two stay with the hovercrafts in case DAVID tries to ambush us with mechs or geth.

"Roger that," Zaeed said without further ado.

"I hate playing guard dog," Grunt mumbled once he was sure his battlemaster was out of earshot. But from the stairwell, came the Commander's voice:

"Yes, but you do it so well."

"Whatever. Hey how come Kasumi gets to go?"

"Because I need her tech expertise." Shepard shot back.

Up the stairs around a dog-legged hall the primary unit of Shepard's team came in to the first opposition of Vulcan Station.

There were seven of them, LOKI mechs and they were severely out matched. They would have been had there only been three with the Spectre. Clearly DAVID had underestimated Shepard and her squad, perhaps assuming like the workers and security forces of Cerberus they were easy prey.

They were not.

Miranda and Kasumi used overload on the mechs causing them to stutter in place unable to use their weaponry. Shepard, Jack, Grunt and Zaeed took the opportunity and opened fire. The males used heavy rifles; Shepard used a singularity. Jack deployed a warp.

The chaises of the mechs swirled caught in the turbulent spiral of a micro-singularity event. The warp sent them back into hibernation mode if only for a moment. It was enough for the men to finish the job.

It was a very swift if not almost disappointing encounter allowing the team to push through to the waystation's control room

*Warning: Pressure levels in A3 have exceeded maximum threshold. Manual override is required.*

Shepard and Kasumi moved towards the central computer console to do just that. Miranda however moved for the researcher's terminal and activated the playback button.

*Engineer's log: We registered a huge spike in energy consumption. My technicians traced it to the experiment at Atlas Station. We're trying to raise them now.*

Kasumi locked her omni tool into the computer's hard drive and activated the override programme that she and Kaji had written to hack into the locks and bypass the firewalls and inner security of any system. It had yet to fail her. Once she did the computer announced that the venting of the outflow was successful.

She practically jumped when DAVID's chittering scream sounded again. Both the engineer's laptop and the terminal in front of her were overtaken by a digitized green cubic face.

Both Grunt and Zaeed raised their weapons but the grinding sound was only the turbines of the venting systems restoring to functionality. More to the disappointment of Grunt who was looking forward to getting in the muck with a bunch of Tinnies.

Returning to the hovercrafts they both made use of the venting stations once more to propel the light-weight vehicles up the canyon wall into a tertiary tunnel system within the active caldera

They simply followed the pipes along the canyon walls to back to the lava river only to cross it a third time albeit from the opposite bank. This time however took a bit more daring and far more skill and a touch of luck to hit the debris fields. They had to use a bounce and hover manoeuvre on longer rock formations in order to cross. Once they did the canyon pipeline lead them to a series of step formations which were of course guarded by turrets.

Bounce up, fire, bounce down, rinse repeat. From behind them Zaeed was making good use of the vent hovering in place allowing Grunt to take over as gunner.

"Like playing whack-a-mole. Only we're the moles armed with missiles hitting the whacker in the face." Jack drawled.

*Yeah! Haha hahhahha." Grunt's deep belly laugh crackled over the radio. "Rocket in the face, should tell that one to Garrus. HAHAHAHAHA.*

* I heard that!* Garrus said. * You just gotta be bad-ass enough to get up afterwards and brush it off, right Shepard."

"Never took a rocket to the face."

*No, but you had a whole spirits damned Reaper fall on you.*

"Hmm... Good point." the Spectre chuckled.

The team got into a looping pattern; lift up the canyon walls by vertical thrust, play lava –leapfrog – vault-boost more walls, until at last six of them came to Vulcan Station proper. Once inside Vulcan Stations and gasses cloyed the air, making it necessary for the rebreather in the helmets to activate.

That same feminized computer from the previous stations announced that once more pressure levels this time in valve D4 exceeded maximum threshold and manual override was required.

"Damn, this brings back memories of Rift Station. Same female voice too." Shepard said. "Think she's named Mira?"

*Probably not, but one of her 'sister' programs surely.* Tali said.

"Don't care." Jack interrupted. "Kas can you do your thing or not?"

"Already on it." the thief said. Tapping into the program and "got it!"

The air pressure started to pop open valves shattering weakened joists in the catwalks, making the metal grating buckle and fall or spring up into misshapen barricades. All around them were the dead.

"Poor slobs." Zaeed said looking at the mangled biotics. "Even for me that seems a little excessive."

"This coming from the guy who decided on destroying a fuel station potentially killing dozens or worse to get your revenge on Veto was a good thing." Shepard cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah well after that beam fell on me pinning to the fucking ground like a goddamm bug, and you pointing the gun in my face before turning it around... can change a person's perspective. "

"Um-mh." Shepard nodded her head as if to express her disbelief. Still maybe the old dog did learn a few new tricks. Like how to give a damn about another person's life and not just the next pay check or round of beers.

"So where the hell are the fucking ...oh nevermind." Grunt interrupted the humans chatter only to be interrupted himself by fire from a hovering tri-legged assault drone.

The drone bounced in the air once before activating its mag-locks on the girding at the far end of the chamber. It was joined by several others, all heavily shielded with kinetic barriers and enhanced tech-armour.

"Hell yeah!" Zaeed joined Grunt in his glee for destruction

"Let's pop some candy!" Jack barked out, her body shimmering in sapphire as she pulled up her biotic barriers.

The enemy was trying to box the five of them into an impassable juncture of the catwalks in a pincer movement. Trouble was, Shepard had read the same manual as did everyone on her team, and knew how not to get caught.

With their backs facing one another, the biotics were able to throw warps, lifts combined with pushes which together caused biotic explosions.

*Received an S.O.S from Atlas station. Archer has declared a project emergency. We're trying to shut down the power generators to starve the VI, but it's already hacked our automated systems! I'm ordering my people to sabotage the plant anyway they can!*

As soon as the logs stopped playing DAVID made his presence known by appearing in the terminal screens. He was increasingly becoming displeased and vexed by Shepard's push.

"That explains the 'excessive' part." Miranda said softly looking out at the wrecked station. Of course the mechs could have done such a thing, but to destroy the station didn't seem logical if you merely remove the organic elements as they had at Hermes Station.

"Why the hell do that? Then those fuckers would be trapped in here along with all those damned mechs."

"But also locking ht mechs up as well, allowing the other stations to buy time." Miranda explained. "Sometimes, just sometimes, nobility can be found in Cerberus agents. Even self-sacrifice."

Jack looked as if she were about to toss a 'whatever' out at the Cheerleader but snapped her mouth shut, thinking better of it.

From the researcher's bay the team continued to negotiate the defunct station taking care to avoid pockets of venting fire from the fuel lines and broken catwalks.

The processing area was a vast chamber of grunters, grating and rock that soared over their head by several stories. Here DAVID had an ambush set. LOKI armed with heavy rifles opened fire barely allowing Shepard and her squad to duck to cover behind the support beams.


	7. Promethus Unbound

Chapter7: Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus Station was beyond the ridge of a mountainous pass, along the way two more Cerberus packages had been recovered. Said packages however would never make it back to Cerberus—at least not as they were if Tali had anything to do with it. She smirked thinking she could purge the memory drive of the data cores once all intel had been extracted then downloading Joker's several teraquads of porn onto the drives and then sending them to Cerberus.

She shifted the idea to the back of her mind once her group flew over a hillock, to the overlook to where their quarry rested. The valley where the crashed ship had made its 'accelerated descent' could be said to be idyllic.

Tali pulled the Hammerhead to a rest at the crest of the cliff top; descending down to the entrance of the crash ship was relatively easy. They need only to bring the hovercraft into a slow descent. The issue was that one of the plasma cannons of the cruiser was still very much active. Not only was it operative it was behind a very powerful kinetic barrier- one that only another warship could weaken. However, there was luck to be had, if you were daring and willing to exploit a very obvious weakness.

The GUARDIAN generator nodes were not aboard the ship, but rather on a networked maze outside the ship itself. Of course each generator had a kinetic shielding of its own. There was no way even the Hammerhead's guided missiles could break through.

Tali grinned. She had an idea. 'Thank you Shepard' she silently thanked her mentor. Shepard would have no doubt dodged in between the cells making the plasma cannon lock on and fire on their location, but just as it locked on she would have sped to a safe distance, thus the cannon would damage its own shielding.

"Perfect." she said without explaining to the other just what she had in mind.

Her husband heard the smile behind the mask and chuckled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Get the cannon to do our work for us, yes." the purple hood bobbed up and down. "This will take precision timing, extreme daring and a bit of Shepard's luck and guile. We zip in and out of the zone intermittently. My ship goes first, once the cannon has targeted us and we'll escape, Mordin you fly in and target the node. We'll circle around and aid. Once we do you will fly to the next node and wait for the cannon to lock on. You have 0.5 seconds to retreat. We then target that node and you provide back up and so on and so on. Until all nodes are down.

"Once they are, we enter the ship. Asher said it was dormant, but with DAVID all bets are off. He'll be activating them either as we enter or more than likely as we try to leave."

"Not unlike a spider." Samara said.

"Yes exactly that. As the human poem says: 'Welcome to my parlour says the spider to the fly.' We can come in but they won't be so kind to let us back out. Hunters and Primes will have heavy shielding and even heavier armour. Disable them as quickly as possible. I'll do everything I can to hack their systems. At the very least we don't have to deal with those damned lurkers."

"Imagine what this DAVID could do with those nimble things! They were always tapping into our gear overloading it or making it overheat. Played a number on biotic implants too from the complaints Shepard, Liara and Kaiden issued." Garrus supplied.

"I think they were purely Sovereign's creation, we quarrians didn't develop them, and we haven't seen any of that model platform since the Reaper's fall." Tali admitted. With a heavy sigh she continued:

"I know Shepard said we don't have time for a hacker's war, but I need only a few seconds. Sometimes our Commander forgets time inside the Net is different than outside. I need only a few seconds outside, inside its eternity. Give them to me."

"Love, you got it." Garrus vowed.

Garrus had the wheel of Hammerhead; expertly dodging in and out behind the pylons calling the attention of the geth ship's targeting systems. Once they were fixed the former C-Sec agent zipped out sometimes narrowly missing the blast of the cannon fire. Just as Tali had planned as soon their hovercraft flew to safety, Mordin swooped in and targeted the pylon-node only for the cannon to re-fix upon the new ship, he zipped away.

Flitting back and fourth like humming birds courting flowers Tali's team soon saw the geth's defences destroy themselves. The way inside the crashed ship was now clear.

Before opening the hatch of the Hammerhead, Tali sucked in a steadying breath, squared her thin shoulders and dug deep to find the greater courage needed to face age old enemies. Enemies that exiled her people to sail the stars, who turned many against the quarrian blaming them for all the ills any and all AIs have ever committed. Enemies who murdered her father and massacred all aboard the _Alarei._ Yes, her father and the other scientists had done horrible things to geth by experimenting upon the AIs, but Rael was still murdered.

"Tali?" Garrus whispered.

"I'm fine. Let's just get this over with. Shepard is counting on us. Let's put this DAVID out of its misery." the venom in her voice apparent.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME

It was eerily silent within the ship. There was no sound of machinery, not even those left by Cerberus. Motes of dust clung to the air in pale blue ribbons of light and shadow. They cast strange reflections upon the murky water seeping into the ship through the great gaps in the hull from the pools outside.

*Attention visitors: This Cerberus facility contains hazardous AI technology. You agree to assume all liability for personal injury or death that may occur during your visit. Thank you.* the same artificial female voice delivered the dire announcement in bland emotionless cardboard tone.

"Of course Cerberus would wash their hands of any responsibilities." Tali sneered. "They always do. 'It's not our fault you got slaughtered by our dumbass bosh'tet experiments." The last sentence was pitched in a sing-song mockery.

"You say such things as if it surprises you that Cerberus would ever claim liability for any action they undertake. We heard such things from Archer. Even the loss of his friends and colleagues did not move him to claim the responsibility for their deaths." said Samara "Or the fate of his brother. Perhaps I should explain it to him once we return to Hermes Station. It may involve a lethal reprimand."

Tali led the group to the centre of the large chamber which its original purpose could not be fully discerned, for it did not look like any CIC of any familiar ship. Then again during their battles with the geth that followed Sovereign and Saren and the countless ships Shepard and the team destroyed they had never been in a single one of them. With the Geth Prime linked up to all the computers, this main chamber with ramps leading up and aft, this could very well be the ship main control hub. Regardless it was the team's only means of accessing Prometheus Station's inner core. Its original purpose mattered very little now.

Along the walls were several bodies, presumably the researchers. By close examination it was very clearly evident that the humans were all shot whilst fleeing. Some had died with panicked expressions upon their faces.

One of them had a pad near his body which must have fallen while he was fleeing. It was Mordin who picked it up, clinically wiped the blood off and activated the playback:

*Now, we just got word Atlas Station wants a dozen geth for the experiment. I hope this means a breakthrough is close.*

"Break through yes. Excellent. Good for your lives not so much." Mordin said in an aside "Experimenting on the geth should have been handled with much more care."

Tali whipped her head around almost glaring behind the visor. However right the Professor was, the words still stung-the wounds of her father's death still very fresh, and very raw. She said nothing however. There was no need.

"This is unnerving." Thane said turning his attention away from quarian and salarian. His focus resting upon several dormant geth platforms. His tactical mind trained as an assassin since he was six, began calculating the odds of his teams escape and how best to confront the inevitability that he was now staring into the lifeless bodies of his soon-to-be-enemies.

"Can we remove the platforms' CPUs or power sources making them completely inoperative? Thus we prevent DAVID from exploiting his power over them once we activate the override." asked Samara. She saw it too, the same grim outcome the assassin had. The odds were clearly not in their favour.

"We can, but only those that we see. In order to completely override the geth, I have to go into the Net." To make her point Tali raised her geth plasma shotgun and fired on the closest platform - a Hunter. The energy charge splattered across the pristine white durasteel chassis, and the thing crumbled to the ground as if it were a carelessly tossed toy.

She turned back to the others who had all readied themselves for retaliation, which did not come. Her shoulders rose and fell in a hapless gesture not of apology but the sheer pointlessness of the Justicar's suggestion.

The purple hood shook once more, "And we have no idea how many platforms Cerberus has stored here." Tali said furthering her point. "Given the numbers we faced on the communications tower, I'd say a lot. A typical human cruiser can carry 2500 souls. Quarian cruisers...3000 easy. We quarians know how to live tightly.

"Geth...you can very easily double that number, even triple it and that's just for the platforms, which carry hundreds of geth inside." Tali chuckled ironically. "Non-quarians always seem to forget that the platforms are only hardware like an omni-tool or laptop. Geth are software. There could be tens of thousands of geth on this ship.

"Geth _are_ software" Tali repeated. "Their cruisers are efficiently designed to carry synthetic masses. Consider the geth have no need for artificial gravity-not with mag locks installed on the platforms. They don't need air-filtration systems, mess halls, lavatories or other hygienic requirements that organics do. They don't need hydroponics for food growth or organic oxygen factories, living quarters-you get the picture. They only need tech-labs, weapons development, armoury, hanger decks. And recharge bays for the platforms and of course massive computer cores and of course the ME drive cores."

"If we intend to eliminate all the geth aboard this ship, we shall be here longer than intended and can ill-afford. Perhaps that is what our Commander meant when she spoke of a 'hacker's war'" Samara said. "As you said Tali let us finish this task, Shepard is indeed counting on us."

"Yes. Must continue on. However, can improve our odds against platforms. Rig explosives at access nodes. Waylay geth platforms, when they become active." Mordin said. "Thane and I can start. You three take on the manual override."

"Good idea Professor" Garrus nodded. "Anything to buy us more time and to stop that DAVID thing from seizing more soldiers. Oh and you'll need these." He passed Mordin a small satchel containing proximity mines. "It'll be one hell of a surprise when the clankers step on those babies."

"We will buy you the time necessary." Thane said. "Then we will escape together, rendezvous with our Commander and take this assault to Atlas Station."

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME

Prowling through decrepit ship was like traversing the corpse of a long dead beast. The dented broken bulkheads were its shattered bones. The still geth shells—remnants of once life however artificial. They were like tombstones in a forgotten discarded graveyard- reminders of what was. Or perhaps a testament of what maybe.

Tali saw a blinking terminal which reminded her of the laptops left on the _Alarei._ Accessing those logs had helped gain a better perspective on what had happened there. The same no doubt could be found here, thus the young quarian woman activated it.

It was a male researcher's voice that piped up from the memory logs: *Hanging around all these dormant machines is creepy. It's like death staring at us from the shadows. I'd rather work at Vulcan station.*

"It appears we were not the only ones disturbed by the dormant geth." Samara said nonchalantly.

The sudden screeching of DAVID made them all jump, as did the sudden appearance of a small green face on all available screens.

"Crap!" Garrus almost squeaked, though if confronted by the high pinched sound he had just made he would have denied it. "How about we not access anymore logs."

"Sorry." Tali grimaced behind her mask. Neither Garrus nor Samara was sure whether or not their young team leader meant to apologize for access the logs in the first place or that they still had to do so if they wanted to gain anymore information.

*Safe to assume the AI knows we are here.* Mordin said over the radio. He and Thane must have also heard the bansidhe wailing of DAVID.

Tali lead the group down the hall now on almost every window the same face appeared again and again. She lifted her Carnifax heavy-pistol and shot a camera near the entrance of a locked door.

"Good bet." Garrus shouted answering the salarian over the AI's unintelligible screams and static,

The whole ship shuttered causing debris to fall from the ceiling, a chunk of metal narrowly missed impaling Tali in head. Garrus grabbed his wife and pulled her back towards him. It occurred to him the same time it had Tali was the falling detritus was quite possibley retaliation for the destruction of the camera or the progression through the ship, or was the ship simply that unstable after the battle that had been fought and a mere coincidence?

And there had been a battle not simply a massacre of Cerberus lackeys, judging by the decimated geth platforms strewn on the floor and under shattered support beams and bulkheads. It appears that at least some of the Cerberus people managed to fight back, though it had cost them their lives in the end.

Garrus looked at a computer console near the top of a ramp. "Time to test a theory." he said just before activating the terminal logs

*Lanigan just ran a simulation-if these geth ever wake up, there's a nighty-eight percent chance we'll be dead within two minutes. I'm starting to hate Lanigan*

Tali shuddered, her mind flashing back to the recorded screams of her father, Juana's mother and the others on the _Alarei._

"One point seven minutes." she muttered more to herself than to anyone. "That's all it took. One point seven minutes to kill them all. Here..."

Another scream from the AI and the ship once more shuddered as if the cold engines were attempting to start. Which was impossible considering Cerberus had removed the mass effect core drives.

"This DAVID does not like us listening in on the past." Samara observed. "Therefore we must continue to do so. This time it was she that activated the latest blog entry on a research terminal that was in the hall very near a three-way corridor.

*Halloween was yesterday. Lanigan ran around wearing spare geth parts. Spooked the shit out of everyone. Now I definitely hate him.*

"This Lanigan sounds like a complete ass." Garrus said. Though a part of him had to chuckle at the image of Lanigan standing in an alcove, reaching out with his arm covered in geth armour—lurching like one of those horrible B-movie walking dead sims that were currently popular.

The corridor led them down a series of ramps and through several doors. All the way the green face of DAVID followed them-closing one door but opening another further along the way which led to more ramps going down into the engineering section of the ship.

"We are being herded" Samara pointed out the obvious. "If this AI is meant to stop us why then is he leading us to where we can stop him?"

"Maybe Shepard's right about what she heard that thing say. Damned if I'm not hearing it now too." Garrus answered. "It does sound like through all that garble-static it's saying 'please make it stop.' Doesn't it?"

Tali nodded. "I can make it out too."

"Like a beast whose leg is ensnared in the steel teeth of very cruel trap." said Samara.

More ramps, more doors far more structural destruction. Blood congealed and cold. bodies lay near by, their heads and chests shot through and through. Amongst one of the dead lay a data pad. Again it was Tali who picked it up and accessed it.

The voice on this one belonged to another male researcher, different from the first however: *Everything's off-line! Archer declared a lockdown, but our station's already infected!*

The ship shuddered again; the clang of metal grinding on metal, the creaking slam of bulkheads was enough to shatter teeth inside one's skull and jolted the bones to the marrow.

*What does the VI want? It keeps screaming at us-nobody understands!*

 _I do. I understand. And I will do what Shepard will always do. So I can do no less. I can't be any sort of leader for my people need...a member of the Admiralty Board, Aunty wants me to be if I don't do the right thing when it is the most difficult to do it. Follow Shepard's footsteps and I can't go wrong. Never go wrong... just follow her. I'll help you DAVID. I swear it._

The team kept forwards ever conscious, ever mindful of what the AI could do.

There was silence. Not even the ship rocking from the upheaval of multiple attempts of waking caused the companions to give up their path. In fact their path led them directly into the inner hub of the ships main power core.

By the door was yet another laptop. Garrus finger hovered over the menu screen, scrolled down to personal log entries and looked to the women. "What the hell." He said and hit playback.

*The VI's closing some passages and leaving others open. It's like its herding us.* another researcher echoed Samara's earlier comment. *At least the geth are still dormant.*

"Small concessions." Tali uttered softly. She might have vowed to help the autistic boy trapped inside the nest of an AI hell, but Cerberus... all bets were off. Let Cerberus burn.

Over the logs and the groaning metal of a ship trying to come to life was the screeches of the AI. And more now then before the team heard the words however garbled and distorted they were still very clear.

*MAKE IT STOP!*

Tali stopped. She heard it clearly. Garbled as it was she heard the words, the screams of agony. The sound of pain and fear. Under it all was the binary sound of digital code. It was almost the sound she had heard on the Lunar Station. It was a plea for help. Her vow to DAVID all that more powerful.

Tali knew what was under that code; it was the only thing she kept from Shepard all those years ago. The VI on the human's training arena was pleading for help. The last code was 'Help Me.' At the time Tali so loathed the geth, in truth that hatred had extended to all AI. To that extension her loathing reached most of VIs/ Tali had never told the newly minted Spectre what that the Lunar VI called out in its last moments of existence was for help.

Now another AI/ VI was pleading the same, 'Help Me.' This time angry ears would not become deaf and turn away from such a plea. _This_ time was going to be different. Inside the husk of that machine was a boy, an innocent begging for it all to stop. Cerberus was the monster here, not an autistic man-boy turned into a machine.

The guttering in the ship had cascaded down during the initial attack, bulkheads were torn open, line the veins in a body wires were exposed, sparking electricity and coolant as a body leaks blood. Standing water pooled in slimy puddles.

The crew of course were very careful not to step into the puddles in case they were electrocuted by the exposed wires making contact with the water. Past the puddles that the decrepit shell the ship had become.

*To all Cerberus personal. In an effort to reduce workplace stress, music has been approved for station wide broadcast*

Music warbled out of the speakers as if played upon a brass-horned gramophone of human antiquity.

"Ah man if things weren't bad enough now we have to listen to crappy elevator music" Garrus groused with a humourless. "How humans call this 'music' I'll never know."

As they ascended the massive rip in the great chamber that was the cruisers engineering section of the ship. The water here was deeper and there was no way to avoid being electrocuted by the wires dripping into it.

Upwards on the ramp was a large bank of terminals, not however those that would enable the troop to disengage the lockdown.

*Scanning area. The objective is located on the far side of this impasse.* the Hammerhead VI announced.

"I almost forgot that thing was with us." Garrus said pretending he hadn't jumped when the thing spoke.

"Hmm." came Tali, she wasn't about to trust a VI made by Cerberus, so she sent her own drone out to produce its own scans. Indeed their objective was on the far side of series of cat walk bridges. At one time they would have linked one side of the room to the other north and south or east and west depending on the users needs.

"This is impractical" Tali shook her head. "This has to be Cerberus doing. The geth would never have constructed something so inane." She activated the controls of the bridge system so that catwalks were aligned to make a near-perfect bridge.

Without breaking stride Tali moved purposefully towards the far end of the compound where the lockdown commands were located. So far so good, DAVID hadn't intervened. That made the quarian a bit apprehensive-no that wasn't quite the right descriptive, weary was more apt. They all knew this was a trap and thus she had ordered Samara to remain as point guarding the start of the bridge and took only Garrus with her.

The Justicar set a wavering spiral of dark energy before her. The singularity empowered by eezo would act as a buffer between her, her teammates and any danger offered by the geth.

Tali stepped closer to the core and was about to activate the release mechanism and stopped. Tali noticed that Vulcan Station two had yet to have realised their lockdown. Now apprehension riddled the young woman. It wasn't like Shepard to be late. Surely by now the Spectre should have reached her mark. Unless the volcano had bested her. But no...no...no...

That wasn't possible. If the hull of a Reaper ship hadn't stopped Shepard, the free flowing lava could not stop her. Overcome by swarms of DAVID's corrupted geth or mechs. But what ...what if it was worse? What if DAVID had tapped into the Commander's synthetic-parts.

The Commander was thirty-five percent cybernetic now due to that self-same hull had crushed her on the Council chamber floor.

"Tali?" Garrus reached out with a concerned hand. Tali didn't answer only pointed with the metallic mandibles of her helmet towards the screen. In a flash of a moment, Garrus saw it too. Shepard hadn't reached her mark.

"I'm sure it's nothing." The former C-Sec officer said not believing it himself. "She's playing tag with mechs. It'll be fine." again his words were flat as if he were begging the fates to make his words true.

"Everyone be ready, turning the locks-now!"

Tali turned to the console, activated controls and yanked the cylindrical core. In the time between breaths the feminized voice of the stations AI faltered all the lockdown was now accepted.

The screen snapped black.

A time shorter between heartbeats the dead scene flashed with the mechanized scream the companions came to recognised as the rage-pained screech of DAVID His digitized face flashed

Dead bodies of geth platforms, head hung snapped up their photosensors flaring from blue to that same green that made up DAVID's face. Their garbled binary clicks became an extension of DAVID's distain.

More and more came alive. But before the snyths took a step Samara opened fire with her Disciple shotgun causing the white chassis of the geth platforms to topple back to the dead ship's deck.

"And there's the catch." Garrus said. "I knew this was too easy."

"Let's get moving!" Tali commanded using the 'Shepard Voice' she had come rely upon more and more. Weapon free, Tali sprinted ahead rejoining the asari, knowing without looking that her husband had her six covered.

Needlessly the female VI droned a warning that hostile geth activity was not only detected but armed response was authorized, as if that wasn't already readily apparent.

The 'hub' was eerily vacant; the ship was far from silent. Klaxons rang out in shattered broken halls, the ship it self shuddered as if trying to rouse itself from nightmare.

*Warning: Geth nodes seven through fourteen are now active. Emergency action required.*

"What-the-hell does that mean?" Garrus demanded, forgetting that his radio-com was still active.

*It means the geth are active where we are.* Thane's distorted voice crackled over the radio in response. Gunfire and explosions followed. Then dread stillness of white-noise.

"Thane! Mordin! Come in!" Tali commanded even as she sprinted ahead ducked under a fallen beam, leaped over broken deck-plates rushing for the door at the other end of the corridor.

*CRACKLE-POP* followed by DAVID's screeches.

"Thane! Mordin!"

"It's no good Tali." Garrus called out from behind the quarrian, as they kept running. "DAVID cut us off."

"Damn it!" came a mechanized snarl.

The door opened. Synthetic heads whipped around, but long practised in hot combat zones, the trio dropped to their hips and slid into cover behind duroplast cylindrical containers. Without looking up Tali deployed her combat drone allowing its scanners to replay a picture of the enemy's lines.

The tiny pink globe bobbed up and down merrily recording the geth which in turn Tali relayed all that the drone had recorded: "Seven troopers ten yards ahead, behind bulkheads. SMGs and automatic rifles. Three hunters-shielded." Tali relayed the recordings.

"Garrus hit the shielded ones with overloads, Samara follow with warp-stasis fields. If Shepard can do it, I know you can. I'll take over the few I can. The hacking won't last, Not with DAV..."

*Attention: This is a geth stasis alert. Neural activity detected in nodes one through six.*

Weapons fire vibrated the air above their heads. Garrus dared to glance over the makeshift barricade. The troopers shifted around trying to gain a fix on their targets. Canisters. Three containers and part of a low bulkhead at his side exploded in shrapnel of plasmatic, shards of metal and molten detritus.

"Ah crap they have full plasma rounds."

"Then we unleash ours." Tali commanded. She turned and fired into the next room hitting the geth platform directly in the center of the white armor. The thing rocked back, pausing in battle long enough for the quarrian to tag its CPU and override its memory core. "They're going to get stronger, the more of them connect!"

It spun around targeting its brethren. Garrus popped his head up hitting the shielded hunter with overload then ducked back down. The weakened shields allowed Samara to fling a warp into its shell followed very quickly by a throw.

At the same time Tali fired seven shots of plasma rounds from her shotgun directly into a second synth's flashlight head, shattering it into dozens of pieces.

Even as Tali attacked the hunter, Garrus turned his attention to a new target. Two of the troopers toppled over...exploding. Samara took out another three using the power of her biotics, leaving Tali the remaining two. Until she spotted rocket troopers. Shielded.

DAMN

Didn't matter. Overlord would take care of it. Chiktikka going for the optics gave the quarian opportunity to pinpoint the weakness in the platforms.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

The explosion was magnificent.

The prime was unleashed.

It took a step. It was its last. Straight into the proximity-mines strategically planted by Mordin and Thane moments earlier. But that wasn't all. Mordin was ex-STG. He knew espionage, sabotage and science.

Using the omni-bow the salarian had created a latticework of explosive tripwires across the prime's node.

*Warning: Geth neural activity increasing. Please isolate machines immediately.*

"Yes. Noticed that. Warning unnecessary." Mordin shot back sardonically. As the Prime fell to its knees. "Taking measures to isolate machines."

From his bird's nest several feet from the deck, Thane peered through the scope of his Black Widow, took a deep breath, held it and gently squeezed the trigger. His weapon armed with shredder ammo-something very unique to his assassin training. The flashlight head of the prime pinged-off flew up through the air like a drop-kicked football, it landed with a hard clank and splash as it fell into a puddle.

"That is one. Many more to isolate." Mordin praised his companion.

*Geth nodes twenty through thirty-five are now active. Emergency action required*

"One has to wonder what does Cerberus considers emergency action." Thane uttered from his perch. There was a very soft thump as booted feet landed on the broken deck. One moment he was not there, the next the assassin was standing beside Mordin.

"Full liquidation of all assets." the Professor said dryly. "It is fortunate there are no active turrets..." he stopped.

The chamber shuddered...then **CLANGG**...the doors opened from all side, advancing like rats surging on a rancid corpse, geth swarmed in. Behind the assassin and scientist another door swooshed open.

Dark energy swirled, electrified the air. Twin explosions of shockwaves rippled across the chamber striking two troopers directly into their chassis—felling them. On either side of the biotic-strikes the air heated with plasma fire. Glances over the shoulder revealed Tali and Garrus opened with continuous fire. Mordin and Thane fell back into cover. Back to back weapons raised. Omni tools and biotics. Tech-explosions. Biotic explosions.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

The ensuing explosion was beyond magnificent. Too bad it hadn't been because of the companions of the _Normandy._ The heavy mech launched rockets, targeting Shepard and her team. Four humans, one krogan and one drell managed to dive for cover, taking shelter behind bulkheads and duroplast containers of supplies.

"Knocked my shields down!" Grunt belted out. It was hard to say if he was complaining or simply announcing a fact.

"Then stop standing in-front of rocket-launchers dumbass. And get behind something bigger than you." Jack chided. "Or do you fucking think you're QOTGS's XO?"

"What's a Quotoogss..." Grunt rumbled.

"It's an acronym-Queen of the girl-scouts." This came from Miranda. "Jack's nickname for our Commander."

"Seriously?" Shepard scoffed. "Queen of the..."

 **KA...KLAAAAAAABLMAAAMMMMMMMMM**

"Fuck!" six voices chimed out as one.

The heavy-mech deployed a fast series of rocket launches all aimed for the barrier the squad had taken shelter behind. The munitions exploded all around the clustered companions in a spectacular display of molten metallic slag burring so hot they had become white. The shrapnel hissed and sizzled as they hit the deck and melded with it.

The squad spread out in a pincer movement, obeying the clicked radio commands of the Spectre. Grunt and Massani took to the left flank, allowing the right to be seized by Miranda and Jack. The men raised heavy weapons: the M-100 grenade launcher and ML-77 missile launcher fired them indiscriminately. In very quick succession the targeted the heavy mech. Holding point Shepard unleashed the M-622 Avalanche, a researched heavy weapon that was very effective against armor, shields and barriers.

On the right Lawson and Jack unleashed a storm of biotic powers on the swarming Loki that sought to take advantage of the heavy mech's assault. Both biotics utilized a combination of lifts and throws to create the easiest of biotic expositions. It was swift and most especially effective. The heavy mechs, superior armor and shielding fell in short order against the punishing unslought. But even as the hulking clanker toppled from its high ground the other Loki mechs turned their full attention on the organic intruders. Biotic barriers, kinetic shields took the brunt of the volley, but the protection wouldn't last under the pernicious assault.

The heavy mech screeched as gears ground against unwilling gears. It shuttered and sputtered. Sparks erupted form joints, Bereft of its rockets the massive clanker relied on its mini guns.

It targeted Grunt; its IFF viewed the krogan as the more dangerous enemy. That's exactly what Shepard counted on. The Spectre's body was bathed in glowing blue as she charged the thing. True to form she unleashed a biotic sword-lash, its rippling arch of dark energy slammed into body of the heavy-mech—destroying its armor.

The swarming Lokis were nothing but slag. At first Miranda matched stroke for stroke with Jack, but the ex-con's abilities with biotics far out stripped the former-Cerberus-loyalist. Like the Commander, Jack unleashed raw power. No. No longer raw, under the tutelage of both Shepard and Samara, Jack's power was refined -if one could refine a super-nova.

The young biotic rushed the mechs unleashing a torrent wave of dark energy ripping through the mechs crushing them in her power. Their glowing green chaises crumbled. in their destruction DAVID screamed.

"Getting real tired of that shit." the bald woman snapped sharply.

"We'll put an end to it soon enough." Shepard said. "Call in." Just as she had tried to instruct Jack and Grunt back on Tuchanka during the young krogan's rites-of-passage, the Commander was making sure her people were sound.

The only complaint was weakened shields. Confident and satisfied of the team's condition, Shepard led her team further into the Vulcan station's control-hub. There was a single Loki mech. At first it was firing a Carnifax pistol at the stations controls. Then it started to kick at the locking mechanisms as if it was desperate to make it inoperative.

Upon their approach the mech turned, looked back to the hub then turned back quickly in a double-take. Shepard holstered her pistol and nodded almost impersonally to Grunt and Massani. In turn the men almost playfully shot off the droid's arm as if it were a tiny target in an arcade's shooting gallery.

Massani smirked at their play. He paused waiting for the droid to raise its weapon, and then fired. They could have destroyed the droid, easily, but didn't. Instead they let it run. Shepard ignored the mech as she moved to the hub and unlocked the lockdown. She glanced up and noticed that Prometheus station had already been unlocked. Or a small smirk to her lips-Prometheus was unbound.

As with the destruction of all the mechs DAVID made his displeasure known. Over the AI's screech, Archer's voice came over the radio.

"Commander Shepard, this is Dr. Archer. Please respond."

Shepard turned away from the hub just as the Loki returned. Shepard turned to give it a look, but seemed to give it no other consideration.

Those that knew the Commander this was not the case. Automatically the Spectre drew her pistol, look at it so very casually and responded. "I hear you, doctor. We've hit the overrides at Vulcan and Prometheus stations. We are moving towards Atlas station. " Without looking she raised the gun and fired shattering the droid's head. "Shepard out."


	8. Brother's Keeper

Chapter 8: Brother's Keeper.

The darkness settled upon the nerves as cement, heavy and unmoving. The only illumination came from the green emergency lighting, flickering on and off. Occasionally a spark would sputter from a defunct malfunctioning tapari vending machine nestled in the corner of the lobby.

Passing as if it were nothing of consequence Shepard paused midstep as a warbling voice solicited the sports drink then sputtered and changed into that of Archer. She gave a glance to her companions before turning back to the machine. This was not the 'good' doctor trying to reach them. These words were archived notes.

' **Archer log 155.2. For many years, my brothers' condition has been a handicap. That changed today. His autistic mind is the breakthrough I've been looking... he can communicate with the geth! Such a tremendous grasp of the mathematics! It seems serendipity is alive and well in the 22** **nd** **century.'**

"I don't like where this is going." Jack muttered glaring at the scrap of metal as if the thing was deliberately targeting her.

"It appears this AI...this DAVID is passing information that he deems necessary for us to hear." Samara explained. "Context for what is to come."

"Yeah? Well still creepy as fuck."

To this the Justicar only nodded in agreement. They all did, yet no one spoke even as the team passed the lobby was a very small narrow ominous hallway.

There were three doors: one directly before them, the other two on opposing walls facing one another. The left and right opened to fairly spacious rooms and given their proximity to the lobby and glancing through the window the room seemed to be a kitchen or break room-respectively. That is to say the right room did so. The bleak hollow darkness lying beyond in the left room made it impossible to see beyond the glass of window.

The door on the left was sputtering with electrical wiring dripping from the ceiling like inorganic intestines. Even if DAVID hadn't locked it, getting through it without the brute strength of a krogan would not have been impossible. And even if Grunt were to bash his way in, there was no guarantee the passage on the other side was a way through the station.

As the group approached the door on the right, it slammed shut and locked. DAVID's digital face appeared as a phantom upon window of the right side. Growling at them in binary, howling-like a living thing in agony.

"Looks like he doesn't want us going that way." Garrus said.

"Clearly." this came from Miranda.

"This is just like the Prometheus Station." Tali pointed out. "He's herding us."

"Yes, but where?" questioned the Spectre. "I mean other than the obvious straightforward route."

Their imaginations prickled with conjured horrors Cerberus called science. Those that had been with Shepard in the very beginning recalled the labs had had tried to bend rachni, husks and thorian creepers to their will. They recalled too the mangled body of Admiral Kahoku or rather what was left of him after the rachni drones had torn the man apart.

No one had an answer to the Spectre's query and she didn't truly expect one. Whatever, DAVID wanted - needed to show them it lay deeper within the complex. Deeper in and down.

Jack was right, Shepard decided she didn't like where this was going. She turned facing her team, addressing them, keeping her tone confident and sharp.

"I want you three," Shepard pointed to Grunt, Massani and Thane "to remain here. So far this is our only access point. Keep the way open however you have to. This AI/VI thing is most definitely herding us but that doesn't mean we have to trap ourselves in here like rats in a maze. Comm-checks every five minutes."

"You got it boss." Massani agreed. His aged face held the expression that he most certainly didn't fancy going deeper into the bowels of a Cerberus facility filled with crazy-ass clankers. He'd rather be bored off his useless tits sitting guarding a fucking door than wade ass-deep into enemy territory where he couldn't lay the bastards in the ground or shoot the bloody hell out of them.

This type of battle was all on the techies shoulders. This was there playground, because he sure as hell didn't have a horse in this race. At least holding down the fort or so to speak Massani felt like he was actually doing something—productive. No doubt that was why Shepard made the decision to leave her tanks as well as one of her best sharpshooters behind to watch their six.

The remaining team-members pressed into the darkness, ears pricked, every sense on high-alert. Once past the threshold of the only open avenue it was very clear to see why DAVID had prohibited them from going into the right-most room. The joining passage was blocked with crates and bodies of geth and Cerberus agents alike.

The only way forward was down. The walls here along the stairwell were heavily scarred by carbon scoring and deeply pitted pock-marks that revealed a very telling story. The battle was swift, deadly with no survivors. Bodies both organic and synthetic littered the hall—both were only hollow shells now. The human corpses had cooled and rigger set in. and the platforms of the defunct geth still sparked and sputtered but they were just as dead. The coagulated blood mixed with the whitish-coolant that passed for plasma in the synthetic platforms, creating pink stains along the grout in the grooves of the black tiles.

As soon as the team descended the last step in the oppressing dark they could just make out another trio of doors. Whist there was no outward damage to them they all swooshed shut. Then...like a quasar machine the doors' locking mechanisms blinked on and off— and Shepard could have sworn the VI was playing with them as the sound coming out of the speakers was indeed the little jingle the slot machines tinkled out as the dials spun random numbers.

"This is seriously pissing me off." Jack growled kicking the door closest to her which happened to be the left. Almost instantly it opened. "God damn VI is trying to fuck with our heads."

"I would say it is succeeding." Kasumi said with no malice in her words. "This is really staring to creep me out. Can I just say for the record I was never a fan of horror vids. And now we're in one."

Weapons raised, fingers flagging the triggers. Shepard glance in saw there were no geth and signalled for the rest of the team to enter. "Garrus, Jack keep watch." she instructed. "We don't know what other tricks DAVID is playing at."

Garrus nodded. "Got it. " He had no desire to linger in the humans' lab longer than absolutely necessary. Nor did he like being ushered into very obvious bottleneck holes. This was a death trap if there ever was ever one.

Jack gave one glance to a Cerberus shmuck who had his brains coating the back of a counter where his body lay slumped against and nodded. She wasn't one for a queasy stomach nor did she feel any remorse over the dead Cerberus asshole but she was happy to step out side the room. The smell of stale blood and burnt flesh wasn't on her list of things she wanted to keep inhaling as QOTGS had a look see.

"Tali...Kass..." Shepard was stopped from issuing any further orders as yet another log from Archer's past came playing out of the laptop that was on the counter near the man who had lost half his head.

' **Archer log 157.8: Unless he sees results, the Illusive Man is shutting us down next week. I have no choice. I'm going to tap David directly into the geth neural network and see if he can influence them. The danger should be negligible. David might even enjoy it.'**

"Fucking asshole! It's just like Teltin!" Jack shouted from the hall. "Not getting results fast enough so they take fucking shortcuts. I want to pop Archer's head like a zit. Spread his god damn brains all over the wall like his buddy on the floor."

"Ineloquently put. But I can agree to the sentiment. Knew Cerberus took great risks for scientific progression. Willing to sacrifice anyone to achieve end results. Desperate. Sloppy." Mordin chastised the dead staff. He lifted is larger dark eyes, blinked once and inhaled deeply as he looked to Miranda as if he half expected her to have an explanation for what Archer had decided to do. She of course did not. Nor did the former loyalist have anything to add to the conversation." Very sloppy."

"Lets keep moving. Kasumi, Tali take a look at the computer banks down by the elevator. See if you can't get it back on line," Shepard ordered.

"Presuming of course DAVID lets us." groused the thief.

Shepard turned to her team; more specifically towards the two she had left guarding the door. "You two know the drill, I need this area guarded. But you may need more than your overload skills, Garrus. Mordin stay with them. Jam any tech you can, however you can if needs be. But make sure we have out exit strategy."

"Don't need any tech-tricks if you can rip a clanker in half with a singularity." Jack smirked.

A smirk Shepard returned. "Indeed."

"Arriving at level two." the tinny voice of the female VI announced after Tali hit the call button.

Nothing happened.

"Okay that didn't work." Kasumi said. "Let's try something else."

She reset the elevator coded punched in a new code from a laptop located on the second tier. Again the voice called out that the lift was now on level three.

"Really?" Shepard sighed and shook her head. "For someone trying really to get us to go some place and hear your story you are sure making us jump through a lot of hoops." she lifted her head towards the CCTV camera that had been watching their every move and issued a force-ten glare that would have wilted any cadet to their marrow. "I don't do hoops. DAVID, get that elevator up here now." A simple command that could not-would not be disobeyed.

There was an immediate response:

"Arriving at level two. Arriving at level four, arriving at level six, arriving at level five. System error. Arriving at level seven."

The doors of the lift glowed white-hot then blue as if someone were using an acetylene torch to pry them open from the inside.

Not a half-breath later, Shepard issued silent commands for her team to take positions. Whatever was coming through that door wasn't going to be a friendly.

Kasumi and Tali both commanded their omni-tools to pull up, activated the bowcasters app and shot guai snare wires at the threshold and lintels of the elevator, creating an orange 'spider's web' of monofilament explosives.

Tali did more than that. Another swift tap into her omni tool and both of her drones fizzled into existence. And from one of her many pockets she took out a small disk and tossed it at the stairwell a level above her. A small almost geth-like turret unfolded itself and spun its double barrels at the elevator.

For the biotics—their bodies hummed with dark energy as all of them pulled the natural eezo brimming in every nerve ending. Biotics were living weapons. They were gravity bound by will. Asari knew it best, but the younger races were catching up in the full understating just what mass effect could do. Organic and synthetic power fused and honed to their pinnacle.

Samara, Shepard, Jack and Miranda, became a barricade all on their own. The four together could rip the very foundation of this station apart if they so chose. The enemies coming through the lift doors would not stand a chance.

Three geth hunters and a goliath sized Prime spun around and abruptly stormed the chamber. They clearly had not expected the explosive-netting blocking the threshold or the sudden waves of dark energy swirling about their chaises tearing apart kinetic shields and armour with biotic waves of a combined warp-singularity-flares. The three biotic powers fused creating a rash of primed eezo and exploded –destroying two of the three hunters even before they took offensive positions.

From the speakers rose an almighty roar of digital anger and pain. DAVID was clearly not happy with being ordered about or his geth being torn apart. From the top tier of the room Garrus and Mordin opened fire with a barrage of cryo-enhanced ammunition. The slugs pelted hard into the platforms pock marking the chassis with great gaping holes destroying the last hunter and obliterating the already weakened Prime.

Shepard surveyed her team and found them all hale and hearty. Satisfied she moved towards the lift. Fortunately the brief fire fight had not damaged it-much. It was still functional for the most part.

"We still have active geth about. We cannot allow DAVID to try and establish a foothold here. Garrus, Samara, Mordin establish a picket line and keep watch. The rest of us will continue down."

Garrus nodded, clearly not liking being separated from his wife or his best friend, but he was turian and one of the things turian did well since swaddling was to take orders and follow them. It was ingrained. Service to the team, service to the ship, service to the unit, service to Pavlon. Garrus once joked he wasn't a very good turian, as he rebelled against following orders when he was in C-Sec. He had failed in his duty. It was something his father never let him forget, not that Garrus would have ever denied it. But he had never failed Shepard. Never would. He was her Trusted after all. He followed her orders.

"Aye aye, Commander." he said. In those three words he let the Spectre know while he didn't like being left behind; he'd do as she commanded. "We'll maintain position."

Shepard nodded. In that was an answering unspoken 'thank you.'

"Go with care." Samara said, "DAVID followed your command this once. However, I highly doubt that will happen again."

"Noted." Again there was an extremely slight smile tugging at the Commander's lips. She was surprised herself that DAVID had actually complied with her orders. Perhaps it was something out of reflex, perhaps it was simply Shepard. Right now it didn't matter whatever it was that caused the AI to heed her orders, only stopping him. Stopping his torment. No one had imagined the screams from before. DAVID was screaming out. 'Please stop this.'

The Spectre turned back to the remaining members of her team. She kept a sharp watch on the now empty lift, the only sign the geth had been in there was the walls within were splattered with the white-'blood.'

Just before she entered the elevator the comm earplug crackle with an asthmatic rattle of static. Five swift clicks. Massani and the others were checking in just as they had been ordered to. Five short clicks meant everything was five-by-five, military speak for everything was fine. Shepard signalled back using the same Morse code:

' **Roger that. Progressing to lower levels: G / Smr / M remaining to keep watch in lift room. Geth still on the premises, eyes sharp. Keep frosty. CDR Shepard out.** '

Filing in as one into the elevator was Shepard, Jack, Kasumi and Miranda. Not a single one of the women dropped her guard or biotic barriers, save of course for Kasumi who vanished from view after activating her stealth generator.

They were ready for an ambush, not for the elevator to suddenly drop from under their feet! The metal grated against metal, the tinny woman advised that she smelled smoke and all cigarettes had to be put out as this was a non-smoking facility.

The elevator plummeted then stopped just as suddenly as it had fallen. The metallic screeching drowned out the worried cries from above from their companions. Those trapped in the 'vater felt as if their bones were shaken out of their skins. Teeth clattered together and Jack swore as her teeth slamming down came down upon the fullness of her bottom lip.

The fall ended as abruptly as it began. With a clang and a ping and a thump. It was amazing the four kept their feet.

"Everyone okay?" Shepard asked shaking the jolting sensation of sudden freefall from her mind.

Jack absently rubbed the back of her hand against her bloody lip and gave the minor wound no further thought. "Just freaking great."

Kasumi was rubbing a bruised elbow and looked sourly at the elevator but she was otherwise sound.

There were choruses of yesses from the others and they were repeated again when Garrus's hurried voice crackled over the comm.

When the doors opened they were welcomed by a quartet of geth. Shepard shoulder rolled forward, sent a biotic push into the cluster, a body fell. Using the training garnished from hours of playing the Echo Game, Shepard raised her N7 Eagle pistol and fired at a second head, spun around in a ballet-like turn and sent a warp into a third body with her off hand moving as fluidly as an asari huntress.

The geth chittered in binary pain and fell to the ground. Only a second later had the Spectre realized the geth troopers were clustered together not as an assault force to greet them but locked into a data alcove. The clankers were unmoving—inoperative. It didn't stop the Spectre from destroying the last.

"I have to say Shep that was impressive." Kasumi said from her hidden shadows. "You may not have rhythm on the dance floor but you sure can move on the battleground."

The Spectre turned her gaze to the shimmering barely perceptible distortion and knew where the thief was, and cocked a cheeky half-grin.

' **Archer log 168.4: I'd be lying if I said no harm could come to David. His autistic mind is alien to me as an actual alien. Anything could happen if we plug him in. But I have to try. Don't I?'**

"Can I just say I really really hate this guy?" Jack said looking accusingly at the computer terminal that had issued the latest of Archer's journals.

"It sounds as if Archer was having doubts." Miranda offered. She held her held up stopping the storm of words ready to bubble out of Jack's mouth. "I'm not defending him. Clearly Archer's second thoughts were utterly ignored, or we would not be here. I agree with you Jack, this man needs to answer for what he did to his brother. To pray upon the vulnerable is deplorable." The look in her grey eyes going serious. "As deplorable as setting up a biotic death camp for children. An elder sibling should be looking out for their younger brother or sisters, protecting them. Not deliberately pushing them into harms way." and for once the hand did not reach the collarbone.

Jack only offered the merest sliver of a smile. The other women pretended not to see the exchange as they busied themselves in destroying the inactive geth one after the other.

"Warning. Detector offline. Serious injury may occur." Piped the now familiar female AI from one of the cameras. In response Tali simply shot it down with a slight indifferent shrug to her thin shoulders.

Kasumi had already scoped the room of anything of value, found a few trinkets that made their way into hidden pockets without word. It was simply part of the thief's nature. Shepard knew if Japanese catburgler found of anything the team could use against the Collectors it would be surrendered upon their return to the _Normandy_. Or more appropriately simply appear in the research stations-schematics ready to be fabricated as needs be.

No one took any note when Kasumi hacked into a computer. Only when the door opposite the lift opened did the Spectre turned to the black hooded woman. Of course there was no response a Kasumi slipped back into old habits and activated her stealth generator.

"You don't mind if I let you take the brunt of any fire coming our way?" Kasumi's voice whispered into Shepard's ear.

The Spectre chuckled. "And here I thought Jack was our biotic tank."

"She might be, but you...you Shep will take a bullet for me. Jack's right about that. You _are_ the Queen of the Girl Scouts. And, I know what you can do. Jack's the tank that rolls over anything and everything. You see her coming. You, Shep you're the sniper. Pinpoint death. That's a _lot_ more dangerous." this was whispered so quietly Shepard knew only she would have heard it.

And she didn't offer protest. It wasn't the first time Shepard was given such a comparison. The asari huntresses that had served with her on the _Victory_ had often compared the raven haired Spectre as a ray that lurked in the bottom of the ocean floor and struck its prey with stealth. Of course those same commandos had named Shepard a shark as well.

However harshly spoken about their resident ex-con Kasumi was more than correct. Jack would fight for them, but taking the brunt force of fire for anyone of them—that was more than unlikely. Still Jack was warming up to the idea of teamwork and trusting those she served with. It was a very slow process, but—there-it was-Jack—Subject Zero was learning to trust. It was progress. Damn that. It was a lot of progress.

The narrow corridor beyond the chamber with the defunct geth was a mirror of the others they had passed through: a door to the right and left and one directly ahead. Shepard moved toward the door at the far end half expecting the guai lock to turn red.

It didn't. It moved. How could it move? Not just along the door and up but along the wall to the latch onto the left. Then it came to the Spectre she had not seen locking mechanism on the other doors before now. In fact the door across the hall remained shut fast and looked more like the bulkhead than an entrance to a laboratory.

The team flanked either side of the door, scanning for threats. When none presented itself, the women moved lockstep into the chamber that looked more like a hanger than a lab. Central within the room was a massive computer terminal. Shepard trained eyes took in the five desks half of them covered in paperwork and there were more than one of the utilitarian chairs tipped over. That was not unexpected; the owners of the chairs most likely bolted to their feet causing them to topple over in haste to flee to perceived safety.

"It's a VI server console." Tali said as soon as she clapped eyes upon the silver and blue construct. "Larger than the one on the _Normandy_ for EDI of course. If DAVID is anywhere...it will be in there."

Shepard frowned. "His mind maybe...but where is _his_ body?"

To that the quarian had no answer. None of them did.

"One way to find out." Shepard decisively moved to the terminal's controls, her fingers hovered over the panel "Be ready. Don't be surprised if this button summons a Reaper." She depressed the central battle on the glowing holographic interface, almost as soon as she did her body stiffened.

Shepard had come out of the Citadel in critical condition. Four days of surgery had left the Spectre with a body that was more than thirty-seven per cent synthetic. Microfiber weave laced her muscles, more than half of her major organs had been replaced by cybernetics and bio-synthetics. Her touch with Cyan Syndrome, left Shepard with multicore implants and extensive lattice work that connected the Alamari crafted biotic amp to her nervous system. A nervous system that now felt it had gone on fire.

Her body was not at her command, Shepard could feel DAVID's influence over synthetic parts and her saw a milky-green balefire glow swarm over her body. Even her eyes had the glowing sheen not of dark energy but that same eerie green. Her omni-tool sputtered to life as DAVID took command over it as well.

"Shepard!" Tali yelped grabbing a hold of the older woman's arm but was shoved aside by the human. The young quarian stumbled into Miranda before she found her balance. She ignored the offered violence knowing it was not her friend or Commander that had pushed her. "Shepard!" she tried again.

Shepard didn't seem to hear. Puppet-like she stumbled on unsure feet to the door and walked out of it. It slammed shut behind her and DAVID had sealed it. Tali banged on it, uselessly. She tried to hack into the systems with her omni tool and found that just as useless. Angrily she turned to the biotics. "Open it. Blast that thing apart!"

Jack made no hesitation to make use of her power. She pulled in the mass effect energy and slammed a ball of power directly into the door. It bulged, but the doors didn't open.

Rage filled the quarian woman. Without thinking she raised her Carnifax pistol and fired on the VI server console. "You will give her back!" she commanded shrilly. "You hear me bosh'tet? Give her back!"

The familiar green digital face appeared over the server console and growled. Yes growled.

Another shot from the Carnifax flared, this time it was directed at the face that hovered before them like some great and terrible wizard in a fantasy book written for a human child.

"Damn it!" Tali snapped coldly. Just wait until she found the bosh'tet lurking behind the curtain. The moment DAVID took her commander, all sympathy for _him_ leaked out of the young engineer as swiftly as air out of a hull breech.

Jack and Miranda looked at one another and pelted the door with warp-singularities and at last they were successful and the door gave way.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME.

The world had turned to amber. She could feel the coalescing world assemble itself in a digital world of virtual reality. Shepard saw bodies of men walking before him. One was Gavin Archer the other a very young man who was bald. Shepard recognized the man-boy from the picture on Archer's desk. This had to be David. The third man was also recognized as he was the man whose skull was cracked open and brains splattered along the desk.

She followed the hall to a door; she opened it and took the stairs down to the corridors that snaked around a massive circular chamber which was dark and impossible to see into. DAVID screamed. "Make it stop!"

Whether it was intended or not, controlled or not, Shepard found herself taking fire from geth. And it took a second for the Spectre to realize that this was the wetwear geth, not their physical platforms. Shepard darted to cover, finding it in a half wall.

Out of pure instinct Shepard struck out at the geth with an explosive weave of dark energy. It popped apart in small green cubes. Shepard darted forward taking cover behind yet another quarter-sized bulkhead. Anther geth shot out at her with a VR version of a pulse rifle but it hit against tightly held barriers. She raised the Kassa-Locust and fired. The 'chassis' erupted into cubes of green that provided Shepard with more proof that the geth she fought here were the indeed the software that Tali so often told them that the geth were not the platforms they were so familiar with.

A third fell as swiftly as it had appeared. Shepard pressed forward. Along the left walls interceded with windows Shepard could actually see the face of David that had haunted their journeys. DAVID.

Pressing onward Shepard saw more bodies lining the walls, all of them wearing Cerberus uniforms. Shepard didn't give them a second glance. They were utterly unimportant. She continued down the circular halls firing swiftly upon geth popping it seemed out of the very walls. Indeed it was quite possible as they were programs, and Shepard knew part of her body was in the real world but her mind had been pulled into a virtual reality.

The hall led Shepard into a lab or at least Shepard believed it was so. It was difficult to tell given that the world was generated out of green building blocks that reminded the Spectre of a vintage arcade game from back in the twentieth. In the center of the room were three white figures. All three very recognizable, Gareth Archer, David and a geth, the latter was strapped to an examination table.

David was sitting on the floor with his arms folded over around his knees which were pulled in close to his chest. It was he that was speaking. "Square root of 906.01 is 30.1...the square root of 912.04 is 30.2."

As he rattled out the numbers, Archer looked at a data pad he was holding in his right hand. "Time on this project is running out. There are no options left. How to get the geth's attention?" he suddenly dropped the pad and covered his face with his hands either out of grief or pain.

Even as he did so David rose to his feet mimicking the sounds of the geth's digital chatter. And to Archer and Shepard's utter astonishment the geth spoke back. Archer turned staring walleyed and mouth agape.

"The robot says hello." David translated.

Archer clapped a hand upon his brother's shoulders. "Eureka!" he tossed his arms up in glee. "David you're a miracle worker"

The green world turned to amber and the growling of DAVID returned. just past the table where the geth had been strapped was a glowing ball of green energy. And there was another such disturbance on the other side of the room. Shepard approached the one closest to her. She went to touch it and even was she did the world once again sizzled into the balefire green.

A new memory.

This time both the brothers were standing looking directly at a geth hunter suspended by mechanical arm, at their sides were two other men. One was clearly the corpse of the lab technician in the other chamber. Shepard had nicknamed the tech as Scarecrow on account as he had no brains left in his head. Or rather Scarecrow's corpse didn't. The last was a man from Cerberus Engineering who was busily inputting data on a pad.

"David, I want you to order the geth to take a step forward." Archer said.

As if it were a game, David did just that, once more mimicking the geth-chatter. And the hunter obeyed. It puzzled Shepard and the technician just how the young man was able to do that.

Archer had a ready answer. "David is a mathematical savant. His autistic mind can interpret the geth language at the most basic form and mimic their phonetics. With his photographic memory, cross-referencing the meaning is a snap. He's literally a human computer.

"Is that even safe, Doctor?" The Engineer asked.

"I see no harm in finding out." Archer answered.

The room went amber once more and there was a distinct sound of frustration from DAVID's tone this time. If Shepard didn't know better she could have sworn the deep digital tone was just on this side of being sarcastic. Clearly the good doctor was wrong.

Examining the second disturbance revealed a very nervous sounding David. His recitation of mathematics was rushed—hurried—frantic.

"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1...square root of 912.04 is 30.2..." the wringing of his hands equally as frantic.

In this memory Archer's back was to his brother. Frustration balled as rebars in concrete within Archer's shoulders. Slowly the elder brother turned and pointedly ignored the younger man-boy's unease. "David can you repeat my notes from Thursday's experiment?"

"Square root of 918.09 is 30.3."

"David please pay attention!" Archer snapped.

David covered his ears, "Loud! It's getting loud in here."

This time Archer took a moment to comfort the distressed young man. "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that. Would you mind repeating my notes from Thursday's experiment?" This time his voice was much softer, gentling David's hand wringing.

Log 137.3. The experiment yielded no dissemble patterns of geth obedience. End dictation now, David. Hell the Illusive Man will have my head for this." The hand wringing turned to bobbing back and forth.

Archer kept his tone soft when he spoke next. "Thank you. And how do are you feeling today?"

Bobbing and hand wringing, David's answer was numbers. "Square root of 924.1 is 30.4...earplugs would be good."

The amber world had returned as did DAVID's geth-growls Shepard turned from the table as she did so she happened to look across the lab into a window that looked out in to another very larger room. What drew her attention were the glowing green platforms of geth troopers. It was a geth hub.

There was no hesitation. The Spectre let loose a barrage of fire in small contained bursts from the SMG. The warp-rounds shattered the pane of glass separating the rooms, ripped into the shielding of the hub. In a very satisfying explosion the four geth were knocked prone and before they could rise, Shepard released another volley destroying two of them.

The one on her left managed to get to its feet and return fire. Fortunately Shepard's hardsuit kinetic shielding and biotic barriers took the brunt of the attack. She turned and using a combination of lift-throw destroyed her assailant, by tossing it into the last remaining trooper, critically damaging its own kinetic shielding. Allowing Shepard to drop three quick shots into its flashlight head.

She used the window ledge to leap up and over into the hub room. She glanced around quickly before proceeding out the door back into the circular hallways. From here there were more windows looking out into a vast cylindrical chamber that the massive green head that was DAVID was begging—pleading

"PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

"I'm trying David. I promise you. But you have to help me help you, okay buddy?" Shepard responded softly, knowing she was talking to a terrified desperate young man who was in a lot of pain.

Carefully the Spectre moved along the corridor and stopped at a locked door. There upon the locking mechanism following the wiring was a VI connection node.

"So that's how you were doing it. You used the wires to travel and manipulation all those locks." She nodded as if appreciating the ease of how he was able to seemingly move a guai lock from one door, along a wall to another door.

He hadn't actually moved the lock at all. It was more akin to the blinking of Christmas fairy lights or more appropriately the flashing lights of marquee that blinked on and off so rapidly it gave the appearance of movement.

The large pulsating node then was a hint. Destroy it and the door would unlock. She did so, and it did. The door swooshed open. Pressing forward Shepard found herself in yet another lab which looked an awful lot like the elevator room in the lounge area one floor above them.

A quick scan of the room bore no deistic pulsing green disturbance. The box half filled with thermal clips left conveniently by Cerberus Security came in handy. Pocketing them as well as a few med-packs from a first aid kit along the wall Shepard pressed on.

Just was she was about to activate the elevator controls for the lift she noted in the centre of the room was another one of those VI hubs that had dumped her into the VI world in the first place. Projected from the centre was a very familiar ship.

"No." Shepard said very firmly knowing David could hear her. "You are not taking my ship, David. That's not going to happen, Buddy. You understand me?" She moved back to the window and looked directly as the massive green head. "I won't let you have her. So just get that very idea out of your head, right now Mister!" It was as order as much was it was a statement of fact. "You make a try for the _Normandy_ and you and I are going to have some real issues. So let's not go there."

A desperate man in pain was a dangerous creature, especially if he were terrified. This was going to get messy. If she had to destroy David to stop him, goddess curse her, she would. But there was no way Shepard was going to allow the AI/VI part of David to have her baby. It struck the Commander then just how much this new _Normandy_ meant to her. She wasn't just another ship, she was home. And no one, not the Council, not Cerberus, not the Collector and sure as hell not the Reapers were going to take this one away from her.

The Commander's hand hovered over the controls of the lift then she withdrew it. Knowing from experience that as soon as she summoned the 'vater DAVID would have geth troopers waiting for her. It was how she had separated the minds there was the human man-child David and then there was the AI DAVID malware.

Planting a singularity at the centre of the lift and then withdrawing the SMG, Shepard ordered the lift come to her floor. Almost as soon as she did, Tinny, (the female AI) issued a warning that the maximum weight the lift could carry was exceeded.

The floor-doors opened trigging the singularity to expand and explode directly the hunter and three troopers. She fired upon their spinning forms that were careening in a micro orbit around the biotic mass effect field. They had not even gotten a shot off before they disintegrated into small green cubes.

Once Shepard was positive no more were to follow she moved the elevator and commanded to descend to the ground floor of the main hub.

Here the green head was even greater in size than Shepard had anticipated, DAVIDs entire head was made up of those same small green cubes. Millions of them. But as she approached there was another memory playing this time it appeared to be just Archer and Scarecrow.

Once more David's voice was filled with panic and fear. "The square root of 906.01 is 30.1...square root of 912.04 is 30.2 "

And once more Archer was pointedly ignoring the terror in his little brother as was Scarecrow. "We're ready. Open a connection to the geth network."

Scarecrow complied causing DAVID to scream. "MAKE IT STOP!"

The memory room filled with geth troopers armed with pulse rifles and all pointed at Scarecrow and Archer.

"David! NO!" Archer shouted. "Tell the geth to stand down!"

"PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

There was the sound of glass shattering. And suddenly all the memory evaporated as the DAVID's green head reappeared before Shepard hovering just like the flaming green head of the Wizard of Oz had before Dorothy—great and terrible.

Tinny announced that the Normandy SR2 was within range.

"Like hell it is." Shepard snapped. If the nodes were how DAVID controlled the locks and revealed memories, it was now he was how he was going to try and take over her ship. And if they could be destroyed on the doors, they sure as hell could be destroyed right here on the hub that generated them.

Rapid fire with warp rounds quickly obliterated one such node casing DAVID to screech out angrily that the data stream had been interrupted. A force field around the center of the hub fell away revealing a pulsating black orb not unlike the center of a biotic singularity. If that could be neutralized then David would be freed.

Shepard opened fire, directly at the center of mass. All too soon the shielding returned and over the comm-system Archer's voice, still a memory called out. "Pull the plug! Tell Vulcan Station to cut all power!"

"It's too late!" Scarecrow responded, equally desperate. "We've lost control."

The big giant head returned as well, it was almost as the small human part of David was trying to communicate because it looked directly at a moving node then to Shepard. Then it looked at another section of the room and another tendril. So there were going to be two nodes this time.

"I got it Buddy. Good to know you're still in there, somewhere." Shepard said then opened fire on the little green ball. It was moving fast along the massive tendrils of wires that stuck out from the big green head as if they were Medusa's serpents.

"Attempting to establish uplink." Tiny announced placidly.

The node was far too close to the hub for Shepard's liking before she managed to destroy it. Unlike the first time however the shielding around the centre did not fall away. Instead at the very spot where David had looked, geth poured out, all armed with pulse rifles. No doubt they were same ones that had plastered Scarecrow's brains in the lab.

Shepard swiftly shifted back trying to find cover and fire at the clankers at the same time. She cast a very quick look behind her to see where the node was. She had a second—maybe...

Her armor's shields dropped below the threshold the Spectre was comfortable with. Turning her attention back to the geth, Shepard used a biotic flare and a slam taking out the geth assailants, the combination caused a dark energy explosion that took out the clanker behind the trooper.

The Spectre spun on the ball of her left foot Echo-Game style and opened fire on the node that was by now half way to the access point. When it blew the shielding around the hub imploded as before with the distinct tinkling of glass shattering.

The Commander expended one clip firing into the hub's core and then slammed another clip into the SMG and nearly had that one emptied before DAVID restored the protective barrier around the center.

The frantic voice of Archer's memory warbled out of the speakers: "David you have to stop this!"

"DAVID DOESN'T WANT TO BE HERE!" His voice was mechanical as if a geth platform were speaking in basic English rather than the binary chitter.

"Attempting to establish upload link." Tinny said over memories.

In hearing it, Shepard took a half a step back hoping against hope that organic David would once more help her by turning DAVID's big giant head to the next point of node generation. She was not disappointed. Once more the head looked at two points: one directly in front of Shepard and the other adjacent to it.

Once more the first one moved swifter than the second. It shattered by fire causing Tinny to proclaim that link was lost Shepard didn't take time to breathe before she targeted the second VI connection.

It was nearly to the hub before it was destroyed only by moving forward did the Spectre realize there was yet another node moving for the centre. Thank the goddess this one was not as fast as the first one or the _Normandy_ would be in very real danger. Urgency provoked the Commander's actions. The thermal clip was once more depleted, the nanosecond it took her to slam a new one it was precious but the third node explode just as the others had.

The shattering of glass, signalling the shielding around the hub had fallen a third time leaving the core vulnerable.

Breathing hard, the Shepard spun once waiting for the telltale sign that DAVID was calling more geth. Not wasting the valuable moment opened to her the Spectre once more fired upon the core's armor and flung warps for good measure. The warps actually did more damage then the SMG. Why she hadn't thought of it before the Spectre had no time to speculate. But she hit it again and again with biotics.

The past came out of the speakers once more. "David! Calm down! I can make this all go away if you'll let me!"

"QUIET! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

Damn! The shield was back up. The armor was very nearly destroyed too. There would be four nodes this time. Shepard was sure of it. And there was Tinny once more announcing that DAVID was attempting to establish upload uplink.

The commander was right. Directly in front of her generating at the same time were two nodes and the sparking near the ground that forewarned geth were coming to the party.

One down.

"Connection lost."

There went the second. Run, forward shoulder roll take out a third. Shepard mind was on pure high-octarine automatic now just as it had been during the Blitz and her desperate fight with the Saren-husk.

Ping—ping—ping. The shields were still holding the barriers still in place, both could take another hit or two. Third. Lost shields. Find cover. Target the geth. Warp-similarity. Flare-slam. Snap out slash-wave from the sword. Shadow-strike, target fourth node. Down! Warp the armor around the core.

DOWN!

DAVID screaming, "QUIET! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

In a sudden explosive flash that caused the Spectre to shield her eyes the core was suddenly gone. the amber / green world began to melt away.

There in the centre was a spectacle of ghastly torment that whisked the very breath from the battle hardened N7 warrior. There was David, his arms stretched out from his body like the Vitruvian man ...no like crucifixion.

Cables ran through the meat of his arms and were bolted in place. a metal halo centred around his head that connected to mesh collar around his throat and clavicles forcing him to keep his head in place. Worse still were clamps that draped like claws from that same sadistic metal halo along David's bald head and peeled back his eyelids, so that he might never blink. And yet his eyes which were surely dry wept.

If that was not bad enough two hoses were crammed in the young man's mouth, far too large to be anywhere near comfortable. They almost looked like refrigeration hoses. What they were pumping into the boy be it air, food or water or all three Shepard could not have guessed.

From the speakers came the pleading tones of a lost child. "Quiet. Please make it stop."

Shepard's heart shattered. Carefully the approached, her voice as tender as she could make it "I promise you David, I will. I will make it stop. I'll get you out of there. I promise."

From behind her another voice. "Wait! Commander!"

Archer! Shepard never had so much loathing for one man not even Udina as she had for this motherfucking monster. "I'm begging you! Don't do anything rash!"

"Rash?" she growled. "Like forcing your brother into an experiment?" her blue eyes filled with cold-fire. She took no notices of her teammates that came out of the same hall Archer had. All other ready for war, but when they saw David all the anger they had for the VI/AI washed away. Instead all their faces including Grunts held wrath for the elder brother.

"Keelah..." Tali gasped. Her vow to save David renewed. She was not alone in that.

"My God!"

"By the Goddess."

"Shit."

"I'm going to tear you apart!"

"By the Spirits!"

"Not even Okeer did crap like that and he was a sadistic bastard."

Archer had the balls to actually look ashamed. He covered his face with one hand "I know how this must look, but I never intended any harm to come to him. Believe me!"

"Harm!" Jack railed incredulously. "Never intended any harm? Look at him, you sick fuck! You got him pinned up...like...like...FUCK!"

Archer looked at the very pissed off heavily tattooed very angry biotic woman and took a step back from her. He knew enough to know the humming blue glow meant he as in very real danger. Hopeful Shepard had a heavy leash on her. But he saw the same gathering light swirling around the Spectre. And...and...Lawson. A loyalist to The Illusive Man if there ever was one. Only the asari wasn't glowing but at a glance he saw the same cold fire in her eyes that burned in the Commander's. He had to defuse this and quickly.

"It's not like I planned this. It was an accident. Seeing David communicate with the geth...it all seemed harmless."

"No!" Lawson scoffed. "An accident is. 'Oh crap I stepped in varren shit.' This isn't harmless. How can you possibly think doing that to your brother was harmless?"

"Can we just kill the human?" Grunt asked pointing his shotgun at Archer's head.

Shepard shook her head causing the very large krogan to lower his weapon. "They have a point this wasn't harmless, Archer. You were running your own private hell."

"I had no choice!" Archer became defensive. This time he turned his gaze to Miranda. She had to know what it was like. She faced the same sort of pressures just as much as he had. "The demands were incredible. The Illusive Man doesn't broker failure. You of all people know this to be true Operative Lawson." he then gave a very pointed stare at Tali. "Any war we fight with the geth will be bloody. I was asked to find a way to avoid that."

"And how many lives have already been lost for this project?" Shepard shot back.

Archer looked to the floor, "More souls than will ever forgive me. But I won't apologize for my radical ideas." he looked to David, a hand resting upon his chin as if in thought. "If my work spares a million mothers mourning the loss of a million sons my conscience will rest easy."

"Apparently a million daughters lost is okay though." Garrus hurumphed not impressed with the human's metaphor. "Daughters like Shepard or other women here don't count? Or the fathers losing their children?"

Shepard wasn't impressed either, not with Archer's dismissive attitude or the metaphor. She pointed to the young man. "Look at him—your brother will never be the same."

"The damage may not be permanent. He might recover some of semblance of his mind." Archer said far too easily for anyone's palate even the krogan's or the hardassed crusty old merc who had been willing to sacrifice a dozen slaves just to get his revenge on Vito.

"Cerberus will never leave him alone" Shepard's voice became a very dangerous growl. "Your brother will always be a lab rat."

"But a well cared for lab rat. At least he'd still be alive."

"So you'll sacrifice your brother's happiness for your own ambition?"

"Unfucking believable!" Jack snarled. She had a point and that was exactly what Shepard was screaming in her own mind. "You're a real piece of shit you know that? God! Look at your brother you miserable dickhead! Look at him!"

Archer did. And then saw; truly saw the horror of what he had done to David. He grimaced and shook his head.

From the speakers David's soft voice issued forward. "Square root of 906.01 equals..."

"30.1" Archer gently answered. "What I did to David is unethical. If he dies it's unforgivable. Let me take care of him. Please."

"Quiet—please make it stop."

"I think that's a no." Miranda said.

"That is a no. I've seen enough of your cruelty to know he'll never be free from it here. I'm taking him away." Shepard's no nonsense tone brokered no room for negotiations.

"NO! Leave him! He's too valuable!" Archer shouted and actually fired on Shepard. Yes he had fired on her. He had to be insane.

Shepard was fast. She darted forward her own N7 Eagle in hand and backhanded Archer hard enough to smash nose and lip but not so hard to have broken his jaw. He hand shot up cupping the wound and realized that had a hell of a lot of guns pointed at his head. His Carnifax dropped to the floor with a clatter. Why he wasn't dead, he didn't know.

"You even think of coming after your brother and this bullet will be waiting for you. Then we'll see who is valuable." Shepard pointed the muzzle of her own pistol at his nose. "Garrus get on the horn tell Dr. Chakwas we needed her down here, ASAP. Mordin, see what you can do to start getting David down off that thing."

"Absolutely Commander. Right away." the Salarian breathed in deeply. "Will need help. Wait with more vital areas until Dr. Chakwas comes. Samara could you possibly help? As well as you Tali. Closer inspection of some of these devices appear to be Geth."

"They are." The young Engineer confirmed.

"Where will you take him?" Archer's voice was much more contrite as he watched three of Shepard's people start to undo the damage he had inflicted upon his brother.

Shepard was half tempted not to tell the man. "Grissom Academy. They can help special cases like David, minus the torture." Shepard turned to the rest of the group. "The rest of you return to the _Normandy_. Tell Joker to contact Grissom and inform them we have somebody that needs their help."

"Aye aye commander." Came a chorus of voices.

"Just like that?" Jack didn't like it. "We're just going to leave this asshole? He needs to answer for what he did!"

"He will." Shepard said as her eyes rested upon Lawson. "He most certainly will. And the Illusive Man can bitch at me if he doesn't like it."

From the speakers came the thin voice of a very weary David. "Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it all seemed harmless. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it all seemed harmless. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it all seemed harmless..."

Miranda watched as David's eyes continued to weep. She turned back to Archer with a snarl. "Harmless." she seethed. She shook her head. And took a step towards Archer. And then another causing him to back up, his hands raised in the universal signal of surrender as he was forced to take more steps backwards.

"Ca...ca...Commander...?"

Shepard pretended not to hear the plea in the man's voice or the fact Miranda and Jack were all but forcing Archer out of the room with a little help with their biotics. Instead she focused her attention at David.

"David, we're going to get you out of that thing. Focus on me. Alright? Just keep looking at me." She said softly.

"Yes Quiet. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it will be Quiet."

"That's right, Buddy."

Miranda had Archer well away from David by now. Each step as accented with a small flare of dark energy at his feet. "You're the older sibling. That gives you one job with your brother. Just one. You look out for him. Protect him. Keep him safe! You do whatever it takes to insure that. If you have to sell your soul to the Devil to make it happen, to work as his right hand you do it! You _are_ your brother's keeper!"

In hearing this Jack did not disguise her surprise in the admission. She knew the cost Miri had to pay to keep Oriana safe, she just never expected to hear her ...her what lover?... (had they gone beyond hate-fuck-buddies?) to admit it.

Miranda stretched out her hand but her fingers never took hold of Archer's flesh. All the same he felt as if they had wrapped around his neck. Tendrils of dark energy coiled around his throat, cutting off his air supply. He toppled to his knees gasping, desperately clawing at the invisible fingers strangling him.

"You sicken me." she hissed darkly. "You are everything everyone who isn't with Cerberus believes of us. Vile, evil. Degenerate. Caring nothing for the lives you destroy and all for what for progress? For power?"

Archer's face was turning blue. Jack was grinning like a fool.

"I know what we tell ourselves to ease that nagging doubt, to silence that thing called a conscience. I know the words as well as you do. 'Obedience breeds discipline. Discipline breeds unity. Unity breeds Power. Power is life. Life is humanity's survival. Survival is Cerberus. Cerberus breeds obedience.' And I know The Illusive Man is very fond of telling us over and over again that sacrifices are necessary…"

Archer was near to passing out, Lawson let up on the pressure, but only just enough to allow the man to take in very greedy gulps of air. "But how many sacrifices does it take for the conscience to simply die? I know The Illusive Man no longer has one. It's too inconvenient.

"In my earlier days of service, back when there wasn't a _Thing_ , back when pure unquestioning loyalty meant true unadulterated power, TIMmy once told me' the conscience is a sign of a weak mind and an even weaker will. Cerberus does what it needs to do to insure humanity's survival. So that Shanxi never happens again. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the end justifies the means. Sacrifices will always be needed for the greater good. Chagrining in like a white knight brandishing honor as if it were shield was surest way to cripple humanity.

"Oh he painted a pretty picture of humanity standing as pound and tall as any of the aliens. That we must become power to be reckoned with and we most certainly could. But only if we were willing to set a side the baser instincts of integrity and instead embrace the cold analytical necessity of progression. And like a fool I swallowed it.

"I bought it because I had to believe it was worth it. Worth the price of murdering my conscience to keep my baby sister safe. I _am_ her keeper. And I will do anything and everything to keep her safe, happy, protected. You had the same privilege! But you….you tossed it aside."

Archer was still grasping for air, Miranda offered him just enough to keep alert and aware of his surroundings. "Shepard has a bullet waiting for you. And she will use it. Mark my words. I don't. I have something far more dangerous." She looked to her lover and grinned like a tigress. "I have a Jack."

The smile on the psychotic biotic grew wider as she cracked her knuckles.


	9. Counting

Chapter 9: Counting

David found quiet. It was so alien. It was welcoming and yet frightening for such stillness was unrecognizable.

"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1." came a muffled voice from under the soft fleece blanket. Something for which the very hyper-sensitive skin of the still healing flesh of the young man was very appreciative. His time in the contraption had left him in an extremely vulnerable state not simply his mind, but his body was particularly weakened.

The flesh was not unlike the skin long left under bandages, pale and exceptionally sensitive to touch, even the kiss of the air was not a pleasant experience. So much so Dr. Chakwas had taken great care to prescribe not only a series of Medigel injections but she had used a new bio-synthetic treatment which acted as a surrogate skin: developed by Hahne-Kedar called KloraDerm which incorporated chlorophyll to provide the patient with an extra source of energy and to optimize the body's use of both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Of course it made David's skin carry a slight green tone to it.

KloraDerm was meant to speed the recovery rate of patients who had allergic reactions to Medigel. But it also sped-up recovery reactions in burn victims or those with hyper-allergic skin reactions or...those forced to live their lives within environmental suits.

People who wore such suits like Tali, their skin became extremely sensitive to the air when exposed to it. Thus KloraDerm became very popular amongst the quarian and even volus when they shed their suits. Though the latter only used the treatments when in methane environments.

Dr. Chakwas had a very healthy supply of KloraDerm for Tali's personal use. It was a part of the young Engineer's herbal supplements she used so that she might share intimate time with her husband. Now the alternative treatment was aiding a very special young man climb his way back to full health.

However the skin was not the only issues Dr. Chakwas faced to bring David back from his dilapidated state. The muscles in David's arms and legs had atrophied during his forced stay within AI interface. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) was an easy answer to rectify the issues raised by the needs to rehabilitate the muscle groups. The impulses are generated by a device and are delivered thought electrodes on the skin near the muscles being stimulated. The pads' impulses mimicked the action potential that comes from the central nervous system, causing the muscles to contract.

Along with the Medigel, KloraDerm and NMES, Chakwas was also forced to use a post-digestive NEM (nutrient extractor and maximizer) device on the young man. The device drew energy from the fortified nutritional supplements. It was an extremely helpful device created by the quarians for those who went on their Pilgrimages. After all Pilgrims more often than not found themselves eating turian nutrient pastes through emergency induction port (or to anyone else...a straw) rather than the common processed meals consumed in the mess halls of Flotilla.

David's body was in a far too fragile state to digest solid foods but the NEM took care of this factor. By the time they reached Grissom Academy, David would be out of medical danger, though he would still need the medical regimes of consuming nutritional supplements and the KloraDerm.

"Square root of 912.04 is 30.2." David muttered softly. His throat was still very sensitive; it hurt as if he were suffering from strep throat. He could talk without the aid of an AI communications system, so that was something of a positive note.

"Square root of 918.09 is 30.3"

"How you keep all those numbers in your head I don't know." a voice scoffed good-naturedly from the door of the medlab.

"I like numbers. Numbers show everything."

"Guess so." Jack half shrugged.

David turned to the newcomer. This was not the voice of the kindly white-haired doctor that fussed over him like the mother he scarcely remembered, or the gentle inflection of Commander Shepard. Instead he saw a bald headed woman with a body so heavily tattooed it was like the ink resembled a shirt. He was mesmerized by the lines and colors and patterns and kept staring.

Jack was used to this, most of the time she either ignored it or chided the person staring at her with a more than a scathing-scalding sneer. However this kid's stare was different. It was like he was trying to figure out her ink with all those crazy numbers milling around in that skull of his and map it. It felt strange.

"So Kiddo, how you holding up?"

David frowned, blinked several times and realized that he was the person called Kiddo because there was no one else in the room. He sorta liked being called Kiddo.

"The patches make my muscles twitch. Dr. Chakwas said it is to make them work properly again. I don't like the taste of the paste I have to eat. It tastes of old crackers. Dusty."

"Hey, I get that. Maybe I can spike it for you." Jack smirked.

"I don't think I can eat a spike." David said matter-of-factly.

"No, I mean...ah...make it have some flavour." Jack rubbed the growing stubble on her head. She forgot the kid probably took everything literally. She recalled something she read who-the-fuck-knew-when that those with autism had very little understanding of metaphors and even less of euphuisms.

"Yes. I would like that."

"Cool. I'll see what I can do for'ya and still make sure you can eat the gloop." Jack looked at the kid and saw a lot of similarities between her and him. Both deeply scarred by Cerberus, in and out. Fucking Cerberus. God she hated them. Hated all of them. At least the Cheerleader was starting to turn. What Miri said and did to that fucking Archer was beautiful then those parting words...perfect.

' _Shepard has a bullet waiting for you. And she will use it. Mark my words. I don't. I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.'_

Jack smirked _Yeah you do_. _And I won't be nice and let you breathe when I get my hands on you._ Her dark eyes fell upon David. That kid didn't deserve what Cerberus did to him. Then again nobody deserved what Cerberus did to them.

Every time Jack closed her eyes she kept seeing the kid hanging no bolted into that metal monstrosity it like some Christ-figure and all those tubes running in his mouth, wires running in and out of his body. Fucking nightmare. How the kid slept...Jack didn't know. Maybe he didn't, not really. Maybe Chakwas drugged him and kept the nightmares away. Jack knew there were drugs that could do that. Sometimes she took them just so she could sleep for a few hours without the memories of her time in Teltin or the things that happened after.

The rapes at the hands of the pirates who 'rescued' her after she ran from Pragia, the Cult, those two assholes who fucked her in more ways then between the sheets. Lessons she was supposed to have mastered at Teltin, a fellow student she was supposed to have snuffed out because the Needle Men made her. The screams of people she ripped apart with her biotics, the screams of her lost lovers, lovers whose faces she had tattooed on her arm. The murders she carried out and those she wished she had. And always in the background of those dark dreams were the intersecting diamonds of Cerberus.

The true nightmares were harsh, rambling confused affairs. In them she became unstuck in time. In those she would go to sleep on her cot and then wake up with a chilling jerk in the future as if she had fallen through a trapdoor into her body. As if she were riding around in her head like a ghost. She hated those dreams. There was nothing, nothing worse than being buried alive in your own skin.

And now thanks to what that frigging _Doctor_ Gavin Archer did to him, David was plagued with those same damned nightmares. The all those deaths of the frigging-even-if-they-deserved-it Cerberus assholes because of the geth. Because his damned brother didn't or wouldn't hear the desperate pleas: "QUIET! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

The moment of silence between the two survivors lasted only two heartbeats but seemed longer. Jack took a step forward, grabbed the back of Chakwas's rolling desk chair and pulled it to the boy's bedside and sat down.

She didn't even know why she was doing it. She wasn't a people person. She sure as hell wasn't a warm person. But here she was sitting at a tortured boy's bedside looking at a reflection of herself. Doing what? What was she doing? Why was she doing this….?

"You don't wanna talk about the shi…crap that happened to you. I get that. I don't either. So ah…other than math, whadda like? Vid-games? I gotta few on my omni tool. Galaxy of Fantasy is cool. But I got this old fashioned retro game from back in the Twentieth called Fallout Four. The graphics aren't as good as we have now but it's still good, well for a retro game it is. I mean it's the fourth of the series but you don't have to play the other three to get the idea. I sorta like the female Lone Survivor best. Or we could watch a sim."

David smiled. He didn't know about Galaxy of Fantasy. Actually he didn't play a lot of vid-games; he understood the code too much and won far too easily. Or at least the games his brother gave him to play when he was still very young. He figured them out in minutes. Saw the patterns, saw the code and won and was board. Gavin never gave him RPGs, apparently the thought never occurred to him to do. Or he believed David's attentive reaction wasn't capable of following the storyline or keep up with the plot points.

David paused…and frowned. "I don't know your name." he blushed. "Your painted skin is pretty. How did you paint it?"

Jack choked back a laugh. "It's an app on omni tools, though some are old fashioned needles and ink I got in prison."

David repulsed and his brown eyes went blank. Jack could have kicked her scrawny ass. Hell she had issues with needles too. Well those attached to a syringe. It was too soon for the Kid.

"Fuck me." Jack cursed winced. "I mean….um…damn…look sorry about the swearing Kiddo. I'll try to keep it clean with you. "

David frowned then nodded. "Clean? You mean your words."

Jack rubbed the back of her neck and only nodded. "Yeah. So ah…the name. I go by Jack."

"Jack." David repeated. "I like it."

"Beats Subject Zero."

"Zero. It is absolute. It is a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of other integers, real numbers and many other algebraic structures." David said almost blandly. "Minus zero equals plus zero equals zero they are the same. There is no positive or negative zero. Zero exists as an absolute."

Jack considered this. The thing that struck her to the core was that zero wasn't a negative. Almost always the ex-convict had thought of Zero as something as a negative. It meant nothing. Had no power. What was so good about being a zero? How could being a zero be good? But hearing the little math genius explain the power of zero…Jack didn't mind it so much. Well she did but now only because Cerberus had given it to her. But still zero wasn't bad.

…Jacqueline Naught…her nom de plume for writing poetry had a lot more power.

"So sim or vid-game?" Jack asked redirecting the boy's thought. "I've got 'Husks 2: Awl Justice', it's a teen-survival/horror/legal-thriller thing." she looked at David. "Okay not that, meh, space-zombies kind get boring after awhile anyway. Besides I fight enough of those fuc…guys on the ground as it is. Got a girl-power slayer vs vamps: Bloody Mary or…

"Well, let's see. 'Vaenia'…um no… you're way way too young, for that one. Too young for 'The Demon and the Nightmare', too and well 'Ruck Humpers' It's a really funny krogan war comedy…yeah no, not that one… its humor isn't well for everyone. Especially for kids. Got a lot of anime but definitely not for...well under eighteens. "And Ghost in the Shell is for now way to close to home. So not that one."

"Kay stuff a kid can watch….oh! I know! I have 'Taze Patterson: Part 1: The Beginning.' It's ah…a disaster/action flick/coming-of-age story." Again Jack shook her head upon seeing David's grimace. "Nope. Yeah it was a sort of cheese grater for the senses anyway. Kay how 'Nekyia Corridor'? Everyone likes that series."

David shook his head.

"Not a big space opera fan then. Fine, how about a bad-boy rogue cop flick? I've got a pirated copy of 'Blasto: the Jellyfish Stings'…just um …don't tell anyone. It's not exactly legal. Know what I'm saying?"

David was placid. "I'll play a game."

Jack then nodded, "Yeah okay, a game. Which one?"

"Yours." He paused. "I won't have take control over robots?"

"Naw. But there's a robot NPC pal called Cogsworth. He's pretty handy" Jack laughed at a private joke or perhaps it was more of a pun. Realizing David wouldn't understand the jest she offered a wry shrug. "Okay we'll fire it up. It's not co-op. So….we'll sorta play together as one character."

"One."

After a pause Jack waited for whatever was the square root of whatever triple digit number he was about to rattle off. When he didn't, Jack blinked. She asked: "One what?"

"The days Commander Shepard lengthened my life." He blushed and was unable to meet Jack's large beautiful brown eyes. They really were very beautiful and so were her very full lips. Because he couldn't help but think about them, or how soft they must be if he touched them with is own. "And the number of days I have a friend." He blushed even more fiercely, if at all possible.

Jack suddenly realized why the ckid was blushing so brightly making it look as if his cheeks were on fire. The ex-convict was very grateful that she was wearing the leather top and jacket Shepard had purchased for her back on the Citadel and not just the tit straps she wore when she first became part of the Spectre's merry crew.

Granted Jack exploited the sexual desires she felt in cock-hard guys or even the dykes but this…well….The kid was a kid!…and Jack was many things but never ever a pedophile. Those fucking shit-heads deserve to be dissembled and spaced with their guts leaking out of them as they were.

No need to fuel _other_ sort of dreams for this kid. Still it felt sorta cool to be someone's first crush. Jack was never ever been that to anyone. And it was harmless enough, even if it felt weird because…to the kid she kinda felt like…like…well…like a big sister. And she knew from Miri's words what was expected of a big sister. And that was _exactly_ what Jack would become. A big sister.

Miri's words once more floated into Jack's mind.

' _You're the older sibling. That gives you one job with your brother. Just one. You look out for him. Protect him. Keep him safe! You do whatever it takes to insure that. If you have to sell your soul to the Devil to make it happen, to work as his right hand you do it! You are your brother's keeper_ _.'_

Jack pondered those words deeply and decided then and there to be the Kid's keeper, to be what Archer wasn't… She'd become the man-boy's protector. And…then and there…Jack knew what her hate-lover was saying back at that fucking base. Oh she knew on an academic level that the Cheerleader served Cerberus not just because she was a blind loyalist. Miri served the Devil that called himself The Illusive Man, to save her baby sister.

Jack would be damned back into Cerberus clutches serving as a mindless slave if she allowed the kid to be exploited or used by Grissom Academy. She sure as hell wasn't going to let that happen. And considering they also taught biotic kids-well that had to be investigated too.

Shepard had a tendency to be sorta blind to Alliance goings on. And even if the Alliance ran the Academy didn't mean Cerberus didn't have their ugly fingers dipped deep into it. After all didn't QOTGS admit as much? A sleeper agent had infiltrated the Academy and tried to extract a girl that Cerberus purposely crated to be the next Subject Zero. Jack would be damned if she was going to allow that to happen again. And Jack would be damned if Cerberus got their clutches back on the Kid.

Jack made a vow then and there: after all this shit…ahum….crap…with the Collectors was over she'd get involved with Grissom Academy however she had to.

"Okay….retro games it is. Fallout Four, then. Well then let's make our Lone Survivor. What should she look like? The default appearance or…custom?"

"Custom. She should have some hair on her head…with a ponytail….but shaved at the sides of her head. She'll be pretty." David said and blushed fiercely once more. "Can she have painted skin? And…soft lips? Large brown eyes?"

"Yeah…um…yeah….there's a mod for that…." Jack smiled and then shrugged as if to signify she used said mods on her personal games. "Hell there are a lot of mods…I'll show you some of the cooler ones."

David smiled.

ME~ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME

 **Two.**

 **Three**.

Shepard woke with start at the pounding on her door. With a groan she turned over and glared at the space beyond the bedroom. If it was a ship's emergency she would have been alerted via EDI or even Joker if he was at the helm.

"Who's at the door?" murmured a very sleepy Spectre to the ever present EDI.

"A very aggregated Jack, Commander." the AI answered.

Sitting up Shepard, raked her fingers through her dark hair causing it to become a bit more unruly than the 'bedhead' she normally sported after waking.

THUD. .

"A moment." Shepard called towards the door. Tossing the blankets aside Shepard reached for a silken black robe and shrugged it over her N7 boxers and strappy tee-shirt. Then went into the head took a bottle of mouthwash tipped back the bottle and took a swig then spat it out to clear the morning breath before she decided she was partially presentable.

THUD.

Cracking the tenseness in her shoulders she went to the door and allowed it to swoosh open. Without preamble Jack pushed her way past the older woman and started to pace the 'office' area of her quarters.

"Come in." Shepard shrugged at the empty space beyond her door of her quarters. She turned and watched her 'guest' continue to pace back and forth in front of the fish tank. "Want to let me in on what's got you so…." Shepard paused and finally decided on the adjective, "uppity?"

"Yeah, you gotta do it. Cuz' I can't."

"Come again?"

"I'm an ex-con."

"Yes…"

"Even if you did get me acquitted or pardoned or whatever your fancy Spectre status got me. But …it ain't gonna be enough." Jack looked to the older woman as if her words said it all.

"Jack, not that I don't mind this impromptu visit well I do, I was actually getting some good shut eye for once, and that's not exactly been easy for me this past year. But that's beside the point; you want to give me a clue here, because I'm a little lost without some navpoint in this conversation."

"Right. Okay. Fine. The thing is…well shit…David. He's still a kid. I think like sixteen or something. Not adult enough, ya know? Makes him a ward of the fucking state. Even if he's at that Academy of yours he's going to be in the System. Which makes him vulnerable to Cerberus. They'll just get their clutches on him again even at Grissom Academy. But not if he had say a foster parent. You know-a _proper_ guardian. But it can't be me. But it _can_ be you. Well you and your Blue."

Shepard was wide awake now. She stared at Jack. Dumbfounded.

"You gotta Shepard! Saving him from his fucking brother might work, but come on, you're smart, and you know as well as me that TIMmy won't let someone that valuable go."

If anyone knew that was true Jack did. Cerberus was constantly hunting her. And the only reason they had let go of Gillian Grayson was because the girl who would be the next Subject Zero was with the quarian Flotilla. Jack was right; David would never be free from Cerberus not unless he had protection. The sort of protection that having a Spectre and a highly respected information broker and daughter of a prominent Thessian family as guardians offered.

Shepard moved to the lounge section of her quarters which was in truth was nothing more than a horseshoe shaped sofa and a square table. Still it served its purpose as a 'common area'. A neutral space, despite the fact that only five steps away was the more intimate area of the double bed.

Shepard sat down heavily on the black leather cushions of the couch and sighed. "Jack…that's….a heavy request."

The younger woman scowled. "Yeah, I know. Okay. And a big one. Look when you press-ganged me into this whole mission with the Collectors I said I had a price…I got to look at Cerberus files and you got me to Teltin so I could blow that whole fucking thing up. I won't ever forget you did that for me. And I might be out of favors with you. But…Shepard…you can't let Cerberus get him."

"I won't." Shepard answered. "They won't take him. Not again."

"But you can't promise that!" Jack's voice grew sharp and desperate. "Not…not unless you foster him. No court will ever let me do it. We both know it, I'm too fucked up to be anyone's Mom. So you and Blu…um I mean Liara have to." Jack moved cat-like to the other side of the sofa and then plunked down just as heavily as Shepard had. The ex-con's spine withered like a popped balloon. She cast her gaze down at her shoes, she held her hands together which hung just as limp between her legs.

It took a moment to for Shepard to realize Jack was crying…she was _actually_ crying! The Spectre opened then closed her mouth. This was awkward; Sam never imagined she would ever see this sort of outpouring emotion spilling from the more mercurial younger woman.

What on earth could she say that wouldn't sound patronizing or condescending or worse pity so in the end she said nothing. She simply allowed Jack her privacy and the moments she'd need after to collect herself.

The dark mascara Jack coated her long eyelashes with created rivets of black lines down her cheeks. Quietly the Commander rose and went to the head and came back with a handful of tissues and just as silently placed them on the table in front of the younger woman.

Without a word Jack begrudgingly took the tissues and wiped her face and winced when she saw the dark streaks staining on the disposable hankies. She glanced to Shepard and saw nothing of pity in those blue eyes, nor did she see any of the other hated emotions such as judgment she dreaded to see in the reflected in those eyes.

There was no need to guess what images that haunted Jack's mind as they haunted Shepard's as well. Both women saw David strung up in that accursed contraption with hoses, wires and bolts violating the boy's body. Those cruel clamps pulling the eyelids back, making it impossible for David to blink, the tears that streamed down his pale cheeks, and the desperate pleas of a terrified child. And elder Archer's callous response to this horror was to simply say that David would become 'a well-cared for lab rat…'

If Archer considered stringing his brother up like some crucified victim as well cared for Shepard hated to think what Archer thought of as brutality.

"I'll talk to Liara," came a soft response from the dark haired Commander as she retook her seat opposite Jack. "But you're right as a ward of the State, David is vulnerable. I make this promise to you Jack, I won't let that happen."

Jack mutely nodded. Her throat still far too tight to speak with any confidence. After a moment she said: "I didn't cry."

A shake of the head. "No, of course not. You can use the head to ah…wash your face if you want." Another awkward pause. "Beer?"

"Yeah." the answer was followed by the splashing of water.

Shepard went back to the small office area and opened the tiny bar fridge she had stashed under the L shaped desk and pulled out two green glass bottles. She popped the caps and left the little metal disks on the desk and came back into the lounge area. Silently she handed Jack one of the bottles as she came out of the head. Shepard sat back down before taking a health swig of own.

Jack nearly drained hers in one go. "I have to ask, how come you didn't smash that fucktard into little pieces."

"How come you didn't?" Shepard shot back taking another swig of her beer.

There was a shrug. "I wanted to, I really did. Before I met you I would have. It would have been justice."

"It would have." Shepard agreed.

"Now you."

"I wanted to." Shepard repeated the answer she had received. "David deserves justice. So does Archer, the harshest. The final sort. Had David not been watching me, I would have done so. Torn Archer apart with a warp field so powerful…" a grim smile slid snake like over her face, as she borrowed a line from her wife, "what was left of him would have fit in a coffee mug. And I would have slept well that night. Trust me Jack, I sure as hell wanted to. As a Spectre I might have even gotten away with it even out here in the Terminus Systems, where truthfully I don't have any such jurisdiction." Shepard looked once more at Jack and paused before she took another sip from her bottle and then said: "So truth. _Why_ didn't you turn Archer into paste?"

Jack didn't have an answer. At the time she was too shocked to see Miri take out her anger of the scum sucker and then…the words. ' _I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.'_

"I don't know." it was a vapid answer but it was the truth. Why hadn't she?

 _I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.'_ It had been those words that had jolted Jack out of her heated reactionary rage so much so that Jack was struck dumb. And she felt…well she didn't know what she felt…warm? Proud? Fuck it, it was complicated.

 **Four.**

 **Five**.

"So….I have a proposal for you Angel Eyes." Sam said looking at her bondmate's holographic image that was projected on the screen that slid up and covered the model ship collection. She took in a heavy breath. And then she started to outlay the whole mission of stopping Project Overlord. Shepard added the images of the battles and how they found David.

These were the same images Shepard had included in her report to the Council as well as to Admiral Hackett and one Captain Hanna Shepard. Councilor Anderson would have course gained the footage along with the info-package Shepard had sent along with her reports. Then she spoke of the vulnerable position the boy was still in and what could be done about it.

*Goddess. What that man did to his own brother, what he allowed Cerberus to do to the boy. I can't imagine why you allowed this Dr. Archer to yet live. Surely Justicar Samara or even Jack would have killed him if you did not.*

"Killing Archer however much I wanted to wasn't the priority at the time, getting David out of that thing was." A pause…."So what do you think about you know taking him in? It will only be for a couple of years until he's of legal age. And for the most part David will be at the school. After that….well we'll just keep an eye out for him. Help him find his way in life. Pretty sure Jack will too. This was her idea after all."

Adoption? And what does the boy think of this?* Liara asked giving no hint in her tone that indicated her thoughts on the matter. *Have you spoke to him about it?*

"Not yet. I wanted to get your input first."

Liara pursed her lips into a thin calculating line. She seemed delve deeper into her mind her right hand absentmindedly rested over the great swell of her belly. Only in the private security of her own home did the Prothean Expert allow her pregnancy to show. While in her office Liara normally used a holo-disguise to hide the pregnancy, not that any asari would think less of the pregnancy but other races were not so generous in their assessments of a pregnant woman sitting in an office. They would have believed her weakened and thus the fear and respect Liara had very carefully cultivated would have waned.

*It _will_ be easier to foster the child ourselves. I can start the paperwork here on Nos Austra. Even as a silent benefactor…I can make it happen but to sponsor Jack as a foster parent….that will take some doing. She will have to be seen as fit for that kind of responsibility. She'd have to see an accredited psychologist.*

Shepard smiled. "Good thing I already have one on board the _Normandy_."

*One that works for Cerberus.*

"Worked for." Shepard corrected

*Yes and that complicates things, _Muinthel_.* then Liara's lips smiled. *There has been a lot of adoptions and offerings of fosterage due to the horrific destruction of the Kingu comet's wake. Of course if we went through the newer organization called The Shepards, I might just push the fostering though a faster rate, especially if its founder sees your name on the paperwork.*

The Alliance's Red Cross, the turians' Lifebearer Brigade, the independent Shepards, the hanar organization: Healing Waters and hundred of other charities organizations galaxy-wide had been extremely active pledged their support to housing and feeding the uncountable refugees of the planet of Belen—a hanar colony.

Shepard tried not to be bitter about how the galaxy rushed to help the hanar colonists yet had turned their backs on the dozens of human colonies torn apart by the Collectors. The Council declared time and again they could not act because the human colonies targeted were far outside their jurisdiction—being in the Terminus Systems.

Did the Council not care this seeming betrayal for a cry for help was surging the recruiting lines for Cerberus or hell Terra Firma?

Then of course there were the terrorist attacks on Taetrus. A turian colony. The colony's capital Vallum had been hardest hit. Indeed the Vallum Blast had caused a great deal reaction within the great galactic community of Council Space. Not only had the several charities reacted so had the private citizenship, which included people stepping up to adopt and foster many of the lost children caught up in the conflict.

*My Love, I must ask you this. Do you actually believe Jack is capable of the responsibilities that come with being a parent…a guardian over someone as vulnerable as David?*

"Before destroying her demons at the Teltin facility I would have said no. But she's changed, still changing. She and Lawson had Archer in a private area, outside David's line of sight. And Archer walked out alive. That wouldn't have happened a month ago. And Jack's spent a lot time with the kid. Hours playing a game."

*Samantha….* smiled her wife, *being a good playmate isn't the same as being a parent. She can't treat David if it was a rescue varren.*

"Yeah, I know." A frown. "But she's the only one that gets David to talk. He really doesn't talk to anyone else. Not Chambers or Dr. Chakwas and he barely talks to me. It's more mumbles. I think he's still embarrassed for taking control over my cybernetics. But with Jack-he laughs. He engages. He even eats that sludge he forced to eat without making a face.

"Okay so maybe Jack's not the perfect parent material but and not that you or I have any comparison but she's got the big sister act down pat. Anyone who tries to make a move against David…well there won't be anything left to _fill_ a coffee cup."

Liara smiled warmly. *So we act as David Archer's benefactors and Jack acts as the outside face as guardian.* the purple lips pulled into a bright smile. *There are days when I fall in love with you all over again.*

Sam felt heat crawl up her neck at the soft endearing words. "And I you, Angel Eyes."

*It will take me a couple of days to get all the paperwork through the bureaucracy. But my family's standing still has some resonance in the Armali Council. If I use that route to gain fosterhood over David it will expedite things. And I can push to name Jack as a surrogate as well as to his emergency contact along side ours. The rest will be up to you and Director Sanders to work out. Personally I believe I have the easier of the tasks.*

Sam huffed out a half-chuckled. "Tell me about it. Still I have faith in Jack. And ….I think David's good for her too. She's beginning to believe in herself. And that's….something."

 **Six.**

 **Seven.**

"Hey David." Shepard greeted the young man she found settling in the N _ormandy's_ mess hall. Currently he seemed to be locked in some sort of omni-game. Upon hearing the Commander's voice he paused the game.

"Hello Commander."

Shepard sat down on the opposite side of the table. "I've got a question for you. As you know we're headed to Grissom Academy. A place that I think you'll love."

"Yes I remember. You said it is a school for those skilled in maths, science, art, music and biotics."

"Yes, that's right."

"Jack said they don't torture students. I won't be made to talk to talk to robots. That it is quiet."

Shepard smiled. "It is. It's quiet. No one will hurt you there. I promise you that."

"Jack said she would turn people to paste if they tried. Will you?"

"Absolutely. But that won't be necessary. You're utterly safe there. Director Sanders cherishes her students and ensures each of her students' safety, wellness and overall happiness. She's a good woman. I've met her. She's very protective of her kids.

"And that sorta brings me to the question I have for you, if you're agreeable that is. I and my bondmate…Liara T'soni…she's asari by the way; we can offer a certain amount of protection that comes with becoming your guardians, but that only if you want it. And…Jack too. She'll be the face of it. I mean she'll there on the forefront for you.

"You've got a couple of years yet before you're legally an adult. Now as it is you're a ward of the State, but Liara, I and Jack being your guardians well…we can protect you, see to it that you lack for nothing and you have someone to go to if you need it."

"I will be part of your family?"

A nod.

"Jack too?"

"Jack too."

A pause. "Okay."

A smile. A puffed out breath "Okay."

"Square root of 906.01 is..."

"Is...30.1." Shepard answered.

That wasn't as hard as the Spectre thought it was going to be. Then again the paperwork still wasn't completely finalized. And then there was the matter of telling Jack.

 _Square root of 906.01 is 30.1._ Somehow figuring the square roots of integers seemed a lot more fun and far easier. But as Shepard was fond of saying nothing worth doing was ever easy.

 **Eight**

Jack found herself pacing back and forth in Shepard's quarters before an amused Shepard and the holoprojection of Liara. "Are you fucking serious?" Her large brown eyes widened in disbelief.

*All that is needed is your signature. That is if you agree to it. I'm sure David would very relieved to have someone with such a tenacious aptitude to protect.* Liara said with the grace and eloquence that seemed an inborn trait of the asari.

"How?" Jack stared at the document she held in her hand. "How did you make this happen?"

"Does it matter?" asked Shepard mindful to keep her voice neutral. "You asked me to make sure David was looked out for, that he had a guardian that would see to his best interests. Mission accomplished. Liara's and my name will be on all official documents. More importantly because of my marriage to Liara, David has the benefit of being protected under the law of the Asari Republics. Which means he is allowed a surrogate guardian-you."

*A Trusted as it were.* Liara smiled

"Or if you want, you'll be David's godmother." Sam translated, knowing the asarian honorific would have little meaning to the younger human. "So? You want the job or not?"

Jack read and reread the document again and again. It seemed impossible! How could she Jack…she didn't even know her real name…be trusted with a kid's protection, let alone a proper legal guardian? She was a hard-core con. She was a murder, kidnapper, she'd committed hijacking, planetary vandalism, smuggling and…and….and all kinds of shit. Drugs, booze, whores…she'd been in so many prisons….there was a reason she was called the psychotic-biotic! Hell she didn't even know how Shepard pulled off her pardons….at least the pardons within Council Space. And Jack hadn't asked. Benefits of being a Spectre she guessed. But this! This was beyond belief.

Jack looked up and saw an expectant patient expression reflected in two pairs of blue eyes: one asari the other her Commander. Her chest felt tight, her stomach coiled in a knot. And she felt those traitorous fucking tears teasing her eyes. With a shaking hand Jack pressed her thumb on the authorization mark and then signed the only name she could go by…the only name she had: Jacqueline Naught.

She handed the data pad back to Shepard who did the same. Thumbprint and her name CDR Samantha Secura Shepard….paused and then hyphenated her family name with T'Soni: Council Spectre

The document was then sent via QEC to Liara, who like the other women did the same. Dr. Liara Shepard-T'Soni: Landed-Maiden of House T'Soni—Armali Republic.

"There it's done." Shepard's smile was warm. "Congratulations, Jack you have a son."

Jack choked on her own spit.

 **Nine.**

 **Ten.**

Grissom Academy loomed before the Galaxy Map. Shepard stared at it. She was almost wistful. It was time for David to find his new home. Funny, not funny…ha ha it was more funny…odd…that of all the crew on the _Normandy_ to form a bond with the boy had been of all people -Jack…and now she was the boy's surrogate guardian.

Then once again perhaps it wasn't so strange. The two had a great deal in common. And considering that that commonalty was Shepard and perhaps more importantly Dr. Chakwas was more than willing to allow long hours of visitation the ex-con had taken advantage of. It was bringing David back into real world more or less despite they were wrapped up in a-make-believe dystopian world.

And it was bringing Jack into a position to interact with people on a more positive level. Her instinct to protect the boy was in a hyper state. Her desperate plea for Shepard and Liara to take the boy into fosterage was proof of that.

Jack's interactions with David Chakwas and Chambers believed to be a step into the right direction for the ex-con to her own rehabilitation back into a more civilized population rather than her normal circles of criminals and pirates.

In short the gaming sessions were therapy for them both.

It had taken ten days even with the Mass Relays to reach Elysium. This place that had a great deal of history for Shepard, more than simply because of her actions when she had just graduated as an N7 Lieutenant that had saved the colony. It was here the first attempt on Liara's life had happened, and it was here that Aleena—sister to Aria T'lok outed herself to be a bounty hunter. But one who decided to protect her mark rather than to take her out.

And it was here that Shepard first believed that Ashley had betrayed her, and it was also the start of Cyan Syndrome. The affects of the condition very nearly destroyed her family dynamics. And because of the bond born of the gestalt Liara had been pulled into those same effects. Fortunately Ash had declined the creation of a Triad which would surely had been the death of a beautiful marriage once the CS was treated.

Elysium was also where Lieutenant David Anderson followed Lieutenant Kahlee Sanders, a woman who had direct connections to a top secret military station. At the time Sanders was working with a scientific team that was investigating the remains of all things a dead Reaper. That had been more than twenty years ago. Back when David Anderson had been a candidate to the first human Spectre. Saren Arcturus had seen the death of that possibility. Over twenty years later Saren had tried to end the second birth of that possibility with Commander Samantha Secura Shepard. It had not worked.

Spectre Samantha Secura Shepard: Commander of the Alliance triumphed. Saren was dead. Sovereign was destroyed. Now Shepard was the _protector_. She never pretended to be anything different. But to touch the power of a true protector was allow herself to touch the darker shades of the ego carried within the self.

That darker side of the ego was half of life: dark to balance light. Often it weighed within inside Sam like an orphan waiting to be welcomed home. All desire, all fear, all were beset. This was a more than apt description for Jack as it was for Shepard's darker impulses, an impulse one might have labeled as renegade. That part of herself wanted to tear Dr. Gavin Archer apart in a singularity. To kill him as she had that massive firaxan shark back on Thessia. Shepard wanted so badly to render that motherfucking slime's body into liquid. But she hadn't.

Shepard once prided herself on ignoring the darker shades of her personality, to suppress them. Or to pretend they didn't exist or if they did they applied to someone else, not her. Not a paragon—the pure. Not a _protector_. A Spectre.

But to acknowledge the more renegade aspects of the self was to stop lying. Stop pretending you don't want what you wanted. Stop pretending you don't fear what you fear. Half the day is night. To see truly—Shepard realized in reflection in seeing Jack the most unlikely of all people befriend a lost boy; she had to learn to see in the dark.

Yes the renegade self gave power. When you understood the evil of others it made them pitifully easy to manipulate. Had Shepard not done so with Elias Kelham back on the Citadel? A more renegade act she had used to save Thane's son. She simply told Kelham that she was a Spectre and if she wanted Kelham dead all she had to do was to shoot him. And it would be all above board. Of course Shepard would never had done so but Kelham hadn't known that. It was another kind of chess game.

The darker side of morality showed Shepard the stiff places in a being, his dreads and needs. The renegade self gave you the keys to him. It was all well and good, but still Shepard had her own power. A power she was willing to tap into to stand up against her enemies - the Collectors, the Reapers and The Illusive Man.

If you looked at it-from a certain point of view the Illusive Man was a master of armies, but then again so was Shepard. She may not live within a fortified base but she had one of the most powerful warships the galaxy had ever conceived. And a crew far more than willing to go where she willed.

So far that made them even.

But was there such a thing as too much power? Shepard mused. Cerberus's power has waxed when Shepard's influence has waned. By now Cerberus could takeover unsuspecting Alliance colonies and overwhelm much of the Citadel controlled territories, especially now due to the attacks from the Collectors. And they had.

Shepard stared at the map and on distracted thought she pulled up the all the locations where she knew Cerberus to have bases all the way back when she was chasing Saren to now. What she saw astonished Shepard and yet … it didn't. She half expected the network to be this expansive.

Cerberus had created a finely tuned network, a spider's web of power bases. Most the current stations were in the Terminus Systems where the Citadel and Earth Systems Alliance could not touch them. But many of the bases shared the same systems or nebulas or clusters that had had Collector abductions, which included the nebula of Phoenix Massing which was the same nebula of the Typhon system and Project Overlord.

There was something to that...something that nagged Shepard's hindbrain. Could Cerberus be tipping off the Collectors? Making some sort of deal with them? Surely not...but then...Shepard wouldn't put it past TIMmy to do just that. But what then would he gain? It had to be something big. powerful...monumentally powerful...Unless..

A sigh...unless it was a way for TIMmy to get his hands on the Collector Base. Now that would be one hell of a weapon against the Reapers.

"Commander approaching Grissom Station." Joker's voice coming over the ship's intercom system pulled Shepard from her musings.

"Understood. Alert Director Sanders to our arrival and that we will be docking." Shepard ordered and in the same motion turned the galaxy map back to their current location. Elysium hovered awe-inspiringly like a blue and white marble.

"Already done, Commander." Joker said. "Director Sanders is waiting for our arrival."

Shepard smiled at the preemptive initiative her Flight Lieutenant had taken. That was a mark of a good junior officer was to anticipate the needs of his superior's needs and meeting them before they were asked for. Joker was a very apt junior officer.

Shepard moved to the _Normandy's_ bridge and watched as her flight lieutenant expertly piloted the ship into the station's port. With a soft clunk the stations maglocks took hold of the _Normandy's_ hull and an umbilical gangplank stretched out and hissed as its seals locked on the warship's airlock.

"Dr. Chakwas, have our guest ready for deployment. Jack, Justicar Samara report to the shuttle-bay." After a very brief pause Shepard added with deliberate usage of the salutation: " _Operative_ Lawson report as well. Shepard out."


	10. Spectral

Chapter 10: Spectral

Samantha Shepard could read terrain better than just about anyone, Ash had ever met. She knew Shepard got busted up pretty bad once on an N7 mission that went real sour real fast and she found her way out alone and on foot through enemy territory without getting spotted. To this day no one knew how she did it.

Of course Shepard was always turning impossible situations into the possible. And no one expected her to win as she had time and again. But they should have.

Underestimating the Commander proved to be the downfall of those that did so. Maybe that was part of the magic that was Shepard; constantly being underestimated allowed the Commander to perform the remarkable feats and defy the odds as much as she did.

 _Corporal Jarvis Tykhaa approached the camp. "The siege goes well, Sergeant. With our barrage the shield should be down in three standard weeks._

 _Sergeant Drew Gaider sighed at the young turian, "But we're been here a week already!"_

" _Yes sir." the Corporal grinned. "Right on schedule."_

 _Gaider snorted and pulled back under the eaves of the ruins out of the rain. Three more weeks of this damp, slime infested mud hole wasn't something he was looking forward to. God hadn't only forsaken this place, He had damned it too. Three more weeks! Well that was his duty, wasn't it-go where the mission commends it. Their food was low and their camp was nearly flooded out. Three more weeks…_

 _Just as Gaider was pulling himself into a full brood, Shepard came striding in with a small bag hung over her shoulder. She plunked the sack down upon a slab of stone they had been using as a table._

" _What's that?" Gaider looked at the lumpy pack._

 _Shepard shrugged playfully "Lunch." She opened the sack to reveal a half-a-dozen dead spiders. The size of the spiders was important to note as they were as large as turian's hand. She handed two to Gaider and took two for herself, the remaining two was left for their asari companion Huntress Des'zahn T'Kosh. "Fried them with biotics, so dig in."_

 _Gaider knew far better than to complain about the food. He was a marine and as such he had undergone extreme survival training on Heart-Break Ridge. A part of such training had instilled upon all marines: you eat whatever you can find if necessary. His forebrain said: 'Taste is irrelevant to survival when it comes down to it. When it came down to it, if you had to boil and pour your own urine through the purifying strainers in your canteen because no drinking water is to be had, well that was what you did.' His hindbrain said: 'eww' followed by 'ug!'_

 _Des'zahn, who had been long given up the idea of sleep, woke from her meditations and saw the humans prying open the carapace of massive spiders with their knives and eating the meat within with the expression of one who was hungry but didn't care for what was being served._

 _As a Huntress Des'zahn had the equivalent survival training and dug into the spiders, ate them without tasting them. "May I ask where did you find our meal?"_

" _From the enemy camp." Shepard said nonchalantly._

" _What!" Gaider choked on his bit of spider. "El-Tee you were there? How did you get in? What were you doing?" Gaider almost shouted before he reminded himself of his rank._

" _My job Sergeant," Shepard bit into a bit of spider flesh, then with the tip of her K-Bar tapped the N7 insignia on her hardsuit. "Or did this escape you?"_

" _How did you penetrate the shield, El-Tee?" Des'zahn was curious. Her blue head cocked to the side. Asari huntresses were trained in infiltration and sabotage and could easily accomplish such a feat but humans were not known for their subtlety. But then Shepard was the first N7 the huntress had ever encountered. And she was beginning to appreciate the distinction. Of course Shepard was the Hero of Elysium. She had stood alone against an entire platoon of raiders while the survivors of the made it to safety in underground bunkers. That had marked the first day of the Skillian Blitz._

 _The sack which Shepard used to carry the dead spiders was no sack but a map drawn on a scrap of leather. Where she found such a scrap no one asked. "I found this ancient sewer. It goes right under the old city." The N7 pointed at the entrance to the sewers and smirked._

 _That smirk, Des'zahn had grown to understand meant that the human Lieutenant had an idea that went right outside the box of conventional thought even for an asari commando._

 _Gaider knew his CO well and knew exactly what that smirk meant too. "So I assume our plan is to crawl through the sewer, work our way through to the shield generator, fight our way through the defenses, blow up the generator, knock out the shield and allow all our troops to overwhelm the enemy."_

 _Finishing her last spider, Shepard cast aside the carcass of the insect and nodded. "Yep. It's simple, easy to remember, I like it. Let's go."_

Ash sat nursing her eleventh tumbler of twelve year old scotch. She had been listing to the story being retold by two of the participants for their guests for the past half hour. Half believing it- half believing it was too far fetched even knowing the Commander as she did. But that was an N7 for you; Ash thought - they lived the impossible every day. They trained for it.

Captain Des'zahn T'Kosh asari Huntress, Lieutenants Drew Gaider and Jarvis Tykhaa had been part of a joint task force set upon to seize a stronghold of one of the pirate syndicates aligned with those who orchestrated the attack on Elysium and initiated the Skillian Blitz. Leading the squad back then was the newly minted N7 Lieutenant Samantha Shepard.

"So what happened next?" Wobgnots—a young salarian female asked of her bondmate.

"Oh we got inside alright… It was not pleasant but it was effective. If I didn't know better I'd say Shepard was a huntress in human skin."

"I think you're biased." Gaider chided his asari friend. "She's human."

"Some say she's become more asari because of that soul-bond thing she has with her bondmate." Wobgnots said with a shrug.

"Maybe. But she wasn't back then." Gaider said. "She was all human just like me." He lifted his beer and toasted the others at the table.

"You got all the exciting bits, I was stuck back at camp if you remember, trying to break past the damned shield generators the pirates took off the salarians." the speaker was Jarvis.

Ash wanted to know as well, though she dare not voice her desires Instead she ordered another drink sat back and listened. The narrative was picked up not by Lt. Gaider but by the huntress Des'zahn.

" _What a wretched stink." Des'zahn raised her arm to the level of her nose._

" _It doesn't get any better." Shepard said. "But lemons will take the stink out of you."_

" _I beg your pardon?" if she had eyebrows the asari's would have shot up to her crest-line._

 _Smells of the sewers overlaid one another until it became a mass thickness going back in time._

" _Takes out the stench of almost anything from the pores. We used it after being gooped by dead thresher maw guts from that clean up on Akuze." Gaider said. He didn't say they got there too late to be of any help. By the time Shepard's team landed all the Alliance soldiers were dead or MIA. It turned out that the distress call the second team answered was a lure-bait. Unfortunately the team under the command of Corporal Toombs was gone and the maws were mostly dead with only a distress call left in the wake. Until Shepard and her crew found Toombs a couple of years later, the Alliance had believed all hands were lost on Akuze. No survivors._

" _I thought I'd never get that stink off of me. We had to trash our uniforms but at least the hardsuits could be sterilized and cleaned. But Good Lord you'd never get that stick out of the nose."_

 _The stink of that worm was a strange, malignant, decayed-rotten meat that had became transmuted in that which was the thresher maw. It was a strange odor that lay across the nose like a saw blade on a harp. It was like its host; strange, ubiquitous and hellishly difficult to forget._

 _The path the three had taken down the slimy filled foul water or water like liquid became blocked by rubble from who knew how many centuries past. "So what now, El-Tee?" Gaider was afraid of the answer._

 _Shepard flashed a smirk. "We swim," she said nothing more but activated the helmet of her hardsuit which would have its own environmental rebreather and dove into the water._

" _I just knew she was going to say that." Gaider groaned activating his own helmet and dove into the water. He was quickly followed by an asari huntress._

 _The three of them came up out of the black oily sludge. Further along the main tunnel, there were more passages branching off. On either side, rivers of mud like cool lava were already flowing out of them. The three-person squad splashed past tunnels that were better built here than the sections near the sewers' entrance. And there at the end of it was a pale light._

 _A manhole cover._

 _Silently Shepard used her biotics to lift the heavy iron covering. This is where the 'fight our way through the defenses before they blew up the generator,' took place. Under his helmet Gaider sucked in a deep breath, stealing his nerves, readying to attack. Just as he was to move into point position he was halted by Shepard's hand._

" _Hold position, Gaider." The Lieutenant ordered. "There are other alternatives to out right battle. I know you're infantry, but this calls for N7 thinking." From inside her utility belt the Spectre collected a handful of little silver spheres that looked very much like ball bearings._

 _The young Sargent felt as if once more his commanding officer was imparting knowledge of the N7's own experiences onto him. Gaider didn't feel chastised but granted a rare insight. Whenever Shepard began mentoring him, Gaider was keen devour any knowledge he was given. There was no insult comparing the infantry to the N7s. Like the mysterious-shadowy Spectres they were specially trained for tactics and reconnaissance. When you wanted a very difficult job done, done very quietly you sent in the N7s. They thought, acted and carried out their duties on a whole different level than your typical infantry solider._

" _Incoming" Shepard hissed from inside her helmet._

 _At once the three dropped from the ladder back into the sludge that pretended to be water just as the two dozen little spheres exploded._

"And that was that." Des'zahn drained her glass.

"Yep. We brought the whole damned thing down. After the evacuation the Alliance decided to fast-track Shepard to Commander—a couple of years after that she's commanding the _Normandy_ and saving us from some crazy assed turian and his geth minions."

"Don't forget the Reaper ship." Jarvis added.

"Do you think there is any truth to what Commander Shepard said about it being a sentient machine and they're coming back from dark space to wipe us all out or 'harvest us?" Wobgnots asked.

"I do." Des'zahn answered. "But why not ask that human. She's been listening to our conversation all night." The assai smirked and lifted her glass towards the woman. "Williams right? You served with Shepard didn't you?"

Ash tried to focus enough to wander over to the table where the four were sitting and taking one of the vacant chairs

"Yeah I served with her." Williams said. "I was the 2IC of the flagship ground team."

"Wait I thought you were the XO of the _Normandy_?" Jarvis said, trying to wrack his brain for the details. The _Normandy_ crew after all were galactically famous for what they did at the Battle of the Citadel.

"I was, but Alliance regs say a ship's Captain and the XO cannot be off the ship during ground missions at the same time. One of us must always be on deck. So I requested to be her ground team's 2IC."

Des'zahn shook her head. "Truly? Then after she went into the Terminus Systems I suppose she decided not follow those regulations because I happened to know Garrus Vakarian fights at her side quite often and he is XO is he not?"

Williams nodded yet again. "Yeah well, she's a Spectre. Regs don't apply to her anymore." She downed her drink in one noisy gulp which was swiftly refilled by the huntress with something which was distinctly _not_ Kentucky bourbon

"Strange she never came across to me as a person who would abandon such things as obeying the rules and regulations of your military."

"Most of the time she doesn't." Williams sniffed the blue alcohol, dubiously quirked a 'what the hell' eyebrow and then sipped it. She immediately went into a coughing fit as the heady liquor hit the back of her throat like a wrecking ball. "What is this?"

"Serrice Iced Brandy." Des'zahn smiled. "A finer alcohol than whatever swill you were downing."

"Be careful." the salarian advised. "It packs quite the punch."

"It wasn't _swill_ , it was twelve year old whisky." Ash argued. Then took another drink. Truth be told the alien blue booze was a damned sight tastier than the stuff she had been downing.

"Twelve years? Is that at all? What you're drinking now is fifty year old brandy." the asari bragged.

Wobgnots shook her head. "Not all races have the luxury of such a long life span dear." she patted her bondmate on the hand.

"I have a question for you, Ell-Tee." This came from Gaider. "Shepard didn't really join up with Cerberus did she?"

"How could she?" Wobgnots shook her head once more answering for Williams. "Most of her command staff are non-humans, her Trusted is a turian, she's married to an asari and the way I hear it they are expecting kids. And...T'Soni's Trusted is a quarian. Who happens to be Shepard's Chief Engineer. And on top of that I saw her with krogan and drell bodyguards when she was on Nos Austra, a few months ago. _And_ she travels with a Justicar. I may not know a lot about the asari Justicars but I know they'd never ally themselves with racist fascist criminals like Cerberus"

"I have to agree with you babe." Des'zahn nodded. "It cannot be true. She's playing some sort of game with them. Using them to get close and then she'll pop that Illusive Man right in the head."

"Maybe. Or maybe she's tired of no one listening to her about this Reaper thing." Jarvis suggested. "So she joins up with a bunch of assholes who will give her all kinds of resources and bodies to throw at her space-machine-bugs. The Council sure as hell didn't pay her warnings any heed, despite they nearly died because of one."

"I don't know about that. I think the Council _did_ take her seriously but they simply cannot publicly do so. Because they already denied her. Why else would they sanction the building of all those underground Vaults on so many different worlds? Not to mention signing off on Gina Garson's pet project. The Andromeda Initiative has already shipped out. They have to be out of the Milky Way by now." Des'zahn offered. "Arks and Vaults...yeah they believed her."

"Yeah well if the Reapers are in dark space just waiting to pounce you'd think that four massive arks and a mobile space station modelled after the Citadel would draw their attention."

"Maybe they did, maybe the Initiative is wiped out or will end up in Andromeda in a hell of a mess. Nothing to do about it now. That is six hundred years not our problem. But dark space is pretty vast maybe the AI slips though and makes it to the other side. And the Nexus and the four arks make a new home in Andromeda and the Reapers will be six hundred years not their problem." Des'Zahn said.

"You're awfully quiet Williams." Gaider commented. "Nothing to add? You have to have an opinion on all of this."

It was something that constantly cropped up in Ashley's mind. After the events of Horizon, the countless meetings with Admiral Mikhailovich and Captain Channing that fracking shrink all up in her face about Shepard being unfit for duty. Mikhailovich attests that Shepard had all but rejected the Alliance and devoted herself to the aliens. To this Williams could not truly deny. The first time she had rejected Alliance command was when she told Mikhailovich that he could not board the _Normandy_ because though it was Alliance, it was not under his command because technically it belonged to the Council. If he wanted to board the ship he had to gain authorization from them first. As for Shepard she too was not part of his command anymore than the _Normandy_ was.

Mikhailovich had called it sophistry, and he doubted her loyalty to the Alliance to Earth. Ash called it outright insubordination yet Shepard had gotten away with it because she was a Spectre. Mikhailovich asserted that that he had no idea what her blood color was any more. He doubted she even knew. And there were days Ash believed it as well. The Gestalt had changed the Commander in so many ways. Was she still truly… human?

Channing had convinced Ash that the Commander's mind was not fully her own either, that it had been contaminated by the Gestalt and by the Prothean Devices. Even the Commander had some doubts that she was alone in her mind. Well because of the Soul Bond she was never alone in her mind. Commander Shepard was not the woman from those stories.

Channing had a fairly valid point. When no one believed in your dire warnings that the creatures from the depths of hell or in this case dark space are utterly ignored who then do you turn to?

That was the question that plagued Ash's mind even now. She knew this alliance Shepard had established with Cerberus was a ruse to root out their Project Bases. And indeed it had given them the Minuteman Base location. A base according to Shepard's Intel was said to be where TIM was located. It was something Councillor Anderson wasn't going to let slip through his fingers.

Indeed, Anderson led a joint team of humans and turians to infiltrate the base and they had in-fact nearly killed the Illusive Man before he and his henchman (some guy with a sword) escaped. Of course there was another factor, something to do with upgrading super soldiers into biotic gods; the first victim from Minuteman had been some guy named Grayson. Grayson was also the father to a biotic-girl from Grissom Academy who fled to the Quarian Migrant Fleet. Apparently Grayson had turned on TIM to save his kid and in retaliation TIM had abducted Grayson and started to experiment with eezo and Reaper Tech stolen from Sovereign's 'corpse'. That was when it all went to hell.

Ash didn't know any more than that but Mikhailovich railed against the attack, he was thoroughly convinced that it was Shepard that set Anderson up. Shepard had to have known about Grayson, the Reaper Tech, the guy with the sword, all of it and Anderson would have died valiantly on the base along with his joint team. Ash couldn't dispute it all looked rather suspicious.

When does the long-con become the truth to the one playing it? With Cerberus, Shepard had the creds, the tech, the warm-bodies to fight alongside her; they had even made the _Normandy SR2_. More importantly Cerberus believed in Shepard's warnings of the Collectors and the Reapers and was willing to outwardly act. Why wouldn't the Commander join them?

Ash knew what it was not to have people believe in you, being a Williams in the military...by now she should have been a Lieutenant Commander. The only reason was a Lieutenant now was because Shepard had pinned the damned insignia on her chest. It had been one of the proudest days of Ash's life.

"Yeah I have 'em and I don't see that it matters." She tinkled her empty glass back and forth like a bell indicating that she might spill her thoughts if someone would fill it for her.

Des'zahn obliged and waited. They all did. But even with a new drink in hand Williams remained silent or at least on the matter of her opinions concerning Shepard's tie with Cerberus. "You said you served with Shepard during some co-op team during the Blitz?" Williams snorted "Strange you don't hear a lot about things like that."

"No? It was experimental. Proof of Concept. And if it weren't for programs like that the joint effort between our governments to build the _Normandy SR1_ would never have happened." Jarvis said

Huntress Des'zahn nodded, "That wasn't the only thing to come out of that joint effort. The Alliance created the Valkyrie Program to work alongside asari Huntresses. My aunt Nisira T'Kosh commands a commando unit called Talein's Daughters that took part of the Valkyrie program. Last I heard she had an extremely talented human in her unit. Or she did for the past four years. Don't know if Harper is still with the team or not."

"If I were a biotic I'd want to be on unit like that. Be friggin hot!" Gaider smiled.

Des'zahn all but rolled her eyes.

"There is a reason it's called _Valkyries._ " Jarvis chided. "No males allowed. All female warriors. It's straight out of your mythology. "

"Bit sexist, in'it? No guys allowed." Gaider frowned

"Not at all." Des'zahn answered candidly. "We've found if males well of any species were allowed to join asari commandos they became far too distracted. And they're not a good fit with the concept. And of course the humans who work with the Valkyries must be carefully screened to insure compatibility with not only fighting alongside asari but taking orders from us as well. And of course all humans must be very proficient biotics."

"Oh I don't think we're very compatible, Des,"

"That's because you know she's married." Jarvis teased the human.

Ash looked at the female salarian and back to the huntress. "I didn't think salarians did the whole marriage thing. That you people were all about breeding contracts."

The massive dark almond shaped eyes blinked rapidly. "I'm not like most salarians. And not all of us just accept the status quo because it's the way of tradition. _Yes_ I have a bondmate. And I'm not the only salarian that feels this way. My brother is bond to one as well, and he has a stepdaughter that calls him…Dad. And her father was also a salarian, of course that was a little over a hundred years ago. Still it's a bit raciest to lump all salarians into we-just-want- to-breed category. Many of us want more than just to be progenitors of a clutch. " Her dark eyes went to her bondmate with true affection reflected in them.

Ash couldn't fathom it. Salarians were one of the shortest lived sentient species in the galaxy. How could she be married to one of the longest? It didn't make any sense. They'd what have maybe five—six years together, then what? The asari goes off and finds another mate after the salarian kicks off? Probably it was how their kind worked. Though if Shepard passed on, would Liara do the same or would she die along side the Skipper because of that whole gestalt?

"So you all still serve together?" Ash questioned changing the subject. She looking from one soldier to the other. For they were that, soldiers, there was no mistaking that.

"Yes, but not in the way you think." Des'Zahn said. "We belong to a merc guild called the Razors' Gambit."

"Razor's Gambit. Never heard of it." Ash said.

"Tactful this one." Jarvis jested.

"No we're not big. Not like the Eclipse, Blood Pack or the Blue Suns, or even the Talons but we don't need to be. Sometimes smaller is better—just like a razor's edge." said Gaider.

"We're more like a strike team." Said Des'Zhan. "Like the one that hit the pirate's main fortress back during the Blitz. We've been together since then. It's why we're so effective."

Ash had little respect for hired guns. They were only loyal to their next paycheck and whoever was holding it. And after that whole thing with Liara, mercs were definitely not to be trusted. Almost automatically the Lieutenant's hand went to her hip to the butt of her pistol only to realize she wasn't carrying a side arm

"So here on a job or just on furlough?" Ash questioned. She had to get a feel for the situation. She already knew where the exits where and her odds of reaching them. The issue was she was shit-faced drunk and not so steady on her feet; the odds were not in her favour.

"Little of both. Down time between mission tasks. Why you so interested? Looking to join up?" Wobgnots asked, her massive eyes staring at Williams.

"Why you recruiting?"

"Maybe." Jarvis said. "But sorry just like males don't fit the whole Valkyrie Program, you wouldn't fit the Razors' Gambit."

"Too military?"

"Too much of a stick up your ass." A new voice came from behind Ash.

"Abby?" Ash spun around so fast her head spun making her want to vomit. She stared at her baby sister incredulously. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"As you can see we already have a Williams." Des'zahn smirked.

Ash turned to the asari and then back to her sister. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she asked again. No demanded.

"Sheeesh! I heard you the first time, Sis. Take a chill will'ya?" Abby sat down next to the older Williams.

"I can't believe you're a merc!"

"A merc yeah...that's a stretch ..." A hard stare from Ash had Abby shrugging. "More like a private independent army." the stare grew colder. "We work for one employer. She hired the Razors when she first set up shop and made us all hers. Exclusively."

"Hers?"

"Dr. Liara T'Soni. Prothean Expert cum a very good Information Broker." Abby grinned. "I think you've met."

"Indeed." Des'zahn said.

"Hard to say no to a hero of the Battle of the Citadel." Gaider added. "And she pays us well."

"She has her Shadows that do the lurking and harvesting of Intel—to find things and recover them. She has her Shades that quietly take out problematic personnel, up-front information brokers and...us. The heavy hitters." Jarvis's mandibles flared in a turian smile.

Ash turned back to her sister. Shadows—thieves and spies, Shades—assassins and the heavy hitters... "You're no soldier...you're not even military." the older woman's face twisted into a grimace.

"No, but if it's in your blood Sis, it's in mine. And when I was on the _Victory_ I learned a lot. Mostly from the asari huntresses. And if you remember the science team beat the military team in those little war games you, Wrex and Garrus staged. And I'm learning a lot with my guys."

"Your guys." Ash scoffed.

"Yeah dumb-ass, my guys. And I don't have to be 'military' to fight, or do what I do. We all know what's coming. I am not going to just sit back in some hidey-hole lab in a Vault studying xeno-geology from other planets."

"That's what she does in her down time. For fun." teased Jarvis, he then placed a more than friendly hand on the younger Williams shoulder. The action earned him a glare from Ash.

"Oh...um...yeah and Jarvis...we're...well fuck it; we're together. Turns out kissing turians on the cheek ..." a slight giggle... "Isn't so bad."

"You...you're...with him?!" Ash waved at Jarvis.

Abby knew what burned in her sister's heart. "Shanxi was a long time ago Ash. Time you stop fighting that war. I did. Sara has. Hell she didn't want anything do to with the military after Grandpa and Dad and you, but then she went off and married a leatherneck. And Lynn well hell she likes the asari so much she actually got a job working as a greeter at the Consorts on the Citadel."

Ash paled. She had no idea! "Lynn became a...a...one of those!...Mom would never allow it! I won't! Lynn wouldn't be a..."

"Don't even think of saying the words 'space whore'. The Consorts are nothing like that. Lynn says there are more like old fashioned geisha than prostitutes. And she worked hard to _just_ be a greeter. So don't go messing things up for her. Or for me.

"I'm happy with Jarvis. Really really happy. He makes my heart lighter and I do the same for him. He may be your new brother-in-law. We're still dancing around that. Mom likes him to that's a pulse. His Dad likes me, its Jarvis's Mom I have to worry about."

"Yeah she can be a bit old-fashioned. But she's military. She hates it I went with a merc crew rather than stay in service. And she's not so keen on humans." Jarvis shrugged indifferently.

Ash looked like she wanted to vomit. She did not disguise her disgust. A Williams with a ...skull face? Impossible! Grandfather had to be spinning in his grave, so would Dad. The very idea of it was abhorrent! Aliens could never be trusted even if you called them...friend.

"And I'm happy being with the Razors' Gambit." Abby pressed on, shaking her head. "I've never had issues with non-humans but you _still_ do. Even after serving with Shepard on her flagship ground team, being her Maid-of-Honor at her wedding! I thought Tali, Garrus, Wrex and Liara, were your friends. Or where they just shipmates?

"And we're getting off track and the reason I made sure we took leave in this dive in this backwater colony.." she smirked. "Helps we have a mission here, but that's besides the point. I knew you'd come here. You, Dad, and Gramps all liked this joint. I never liked Benning." Abby looked around at the mostly human clientele. Most of who carried the look of old-world bikers and more than a few of them could stand to use a shower.

"Personally, I can't see the appeal. They might think its old-school and rustic charm to have sawdust and peanut shells on the floor but it's just ...uggh. At least the crappers are clean. You didn't completely toss out Nanna's sage advice about 'never eating anything bigger than your head, never eat at a place called Mom's and never play pool at a place called Pops..."

"And never drink at a place that doesn't keep their crappers clean.'" the two sisters said together.

Ash smiled at that last part. "Nanna was right about a lot of things. But in case you didn't read the sign out front. The joint's called. 'The last-stop watering hole'. And it's a _saloon_ not a bar. And there are no half-dressed alien chicks shaking their blue asses on stage." she looked to Des'zahn. "No offence."

"I'm sure." came a droll response from the huntress.

"Way to make friends and influence people, Sis." Abby rolled her eyes.

Ash let out a sigh, "So why come to this dive as you call it looking for me?"

"Hon, get my rucksack would'ya?" Abby looked to the turian causing Ash to inwardly cringe upon seeing such easy affection between her baby sis and that...skull-face...okay since Garrus she had stopped thinking for the most part of the turians as skull faces but when he's all over her sister—he's a fucking skull face who has his grubby talons all over...uggg... her train of thought slipped when the turian returned carrying a heavy urban-patterned-camo-sack and handed it over.

"Thanks." Abby grinned and took the bag.

"No problem, Babe." he nuzzled her dark hair almost as if to flaunt his relationship with Abby and deliberately rub Ash's nose in it. Hell the last time her sister got face to face with a turian was in the mess hall of the _Victory_ and that whole thing ended up in a brawl that got several more involved.

Shepard would have come down a hell of a lot harder if she hadn't allowed Abby to lie about the whole thing. The argument had everything to do with Shanxi and now...her sister was dating one 'em. It didn't make any sense.

"Give us a bit of privacy would guys?" Abby looked to the rest of her team. In a moment the others picked up their drinks and moved to another table.

"So...you gonna spill?" Ash said when they had gone out of earshot.

Abby reached into the sack and stopped. Sighed. And looked at her sister. "Sis, look, I know you and Shepard had some kind of falling out and that strained the friendship between the two...well three of you. And I know it has a lot to do with that whole trinity thing and the CS." The last word was said in barely more than a whisper. "I'll just say this—Liara and surely by now so does Shepard, they know about that Rear Admiral Michael-bitch or whatever the hell his name is. And that you've been getting real cozy with him. And they know about that so called shrink."

"So called? You mean Captain Channing?"

Abby shook her head. "She is no Captain at least not with the Alliance. She's not even _with_ the Alliance and she is no shrink. Fuck the woman doesn't even exist."

Ash frowned "What are you talking about?"

"That woman-Channing? She was caught by the Spectre, Tala Vasir. Trying to smuggle out information on Shepard. Channing was there on orders of Cerberus, what they want with the info is hard to guess but I doubt it's as simple as blackmail. Or even just leverage. Liara believes it has everything to do with the Lazarus Project. She has every reason to believe that Rear Admiral Mikhailovich is also in league with Cerberus. Your association...Sis it doesn't look good."

Ash frowned. "Of course Liara would say that. Liara doesn't wish to see that her wife has turned her back on everything!"

With that outburst many heads turned and Abby let out a disgusted sound.

"Keep your bloody voice down." the younger Williams cautioned.

"Is that what this show-and-tell is for? Those stories about Shepard taking the fortress by undermining it? Was that some sort of parable? That going under the enemy lines she found way to destroy them? Those friends of yours weren't telling those stories to amuse each other; they were telling me weren't they?"

Abby nodded. "Liara is subtle and she believes you would comprehend the meaning behind the story."

"What is even real?"

"You have to ask?" Abby looked at her sister. "You know Shepard; you know what she is capable of. Des'Zahn and her team were telling the truth about what happened back then."

Ash found herself nodding in agreement. She knew Shepard was capable of almost anything. She was like Alice in Wonderland, conceiving and carrying out of six impossible things before breakfast.

"And Shepard hasn't turned her back on anything Sis. She is as loyal to the Alliance as you or I. And she is our best hope in defeating the Reapers."

"That's just it, isn't it? All hopes on one woman. Don't you see that's what the Reapers want? What Cerberus wants? All that power in one place? The CS was a warning sign and we are all fools if we don't heed it. Yes she is a keen strategist, able to survive where others would fall, but Abby she has been turned into a weapon against us. And the fact you ...now serve her wife...damn it...why did you do it?"

"You know why. Weren't you listening? After hearing all of this, knowing that Channing and Mikhailovich are with Cerberus you still accuse Shepard of being with them?"

"You said it yourself, Abby. Shepard took the enemies by undermining their base of operations; passing through the enemy lines. Just like she did when was trapped behind enemy lines during an N7 mission that went sour. No one knows how she found her way out alone and on foot especially how busted up she was. She will always find her way out alone from behind enemy lines."

"I don't get you. Before you were singing hymns to Shepard, one of her most ardent supporters. Why are you so angry with her and so swift to brand her traitor when the traitors were named? Are you angry because she left you behind or that she consciously defies conventionality?" Abby looked at her older sister hard and then it dawned on her. "I know you Ash. It's because she fell from that pedestal you constantly put her on and you haven't forgiven her for it have you? For being a mere mortal human. That's what it isn't it?"

Ash looked at her sister scathingly. She did not wish Abby's words were true, but in her heart of hearts they were true. All of it. And even if Channing was some Cerberus spy her words were no less true. Shepard was not as she was when she fought Saren or the woman that lead the siege and against the pirate horde or stood alone against an entire platoon on Elysium. She was marked by the Prothean Beacons; her mind...was not hers anymore. And those who did not see it were as blind as those who refused to listen to the Spectre's warning about the Reapers.

"Look my crew and I are going to have to call it a night. We have something we have to do tomorrow morning, so good night Sis. And…just watch yourself okay?" Abby rose and leaned in giving her sister a peck on the cheek before hoisting her rucksack onto her shoulders and wandering off to where her team were waiting for her.

Ash stared into the half drained tumbler of blue booze and threw it across the room, where it shattered into a dozen sparkling shards of glass silvers.

"HEY! The barman snapped. "You'll have to pay for that. You've had enough, get out."

"Yeah yeah." Ash rose wobbled over to the bar tossed the portly balding man behind the counter a credit chit and headed for the door. And paused, turned back and tossed the man another chit, "Call me a taxi will yah?"

He pocketed the second chit and gestured with his three chins towards a rectangular box near the door. "There's an automated phone on the wall. Use it yourself." He was still glowering.

Ash contemplated flipping the bird at the old man but couldn't be bothered. Besides he was right, she had had enough. And it wasn't just the booze that she had her fill of. Shepard, Miceal-bitch, Channing, Shepard, Liara her sister, oh yes and Shepard. Ash had had her damned fill of all of it. Fuck 'em all. In her blurry state Williams only half noticed that the bar's clientele had gone down significantly since the Razors left.

The five old-world bikers that still needed a shower had followed the Razors. Panic seized Williams thinking those rednecks would cause trouble for her sister and her alien buddies. Damn it and Ash was in no fit state to fight. Stumbling out into the parking lot, Ash was aghast to see the In-need-of –a-shower-bikers were…were…clasping hands with Skull-faced-would-brother-in-law-over-my-dead-body and her sister and all the other Razors like they were long time buddies. Squinting her eyes, Williams only now notices that In-need-of –a-shower-bikers were in fact wearing the colours not of a biker gang but of the Razor's Gambit.

"Well frack me, they're Razors." Ash murmured to no one in particular. "Well screw it then, screw Abby and her Skull-faced boy-toy and all that shit. I want to go to bed." Ash continued to mumble to herself. Stumbling back into the bar she raised her hand to stall any protests from Fats the barman and went to call her taxi.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

Abby had noticed her sister rushing from the bar as if to fly into a fight. The younger Williams smiled for the show bravado. Of course Ash would assume the worst in people and there was going to be trouble from what Abby had dubbed the 'hairy bikers'. But then of course Ash had no way of knowing the five burly guys were part of the Razors. She waved to Ash with the smile showing that she was okay and in no real danger.

"Your sister looks bad, she gonna be okay?" Gorden asked. He had freed his hand from Jarvis's talons as he looked to where Ash had been.

"She'll have one hell of a headache tomorrow, but she'll be fine. She gets like that sometimes. She blows off steam by finding it at the bottom of a bottle. And a place like that…" Abby pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, "she finds it fast."

"I can see the appeal." Gorden rosy cheeks bloomed with a smile.

Gorden always seemed to be the picture of Father Christmas after too many brandies. He even had the gut to match and his thick white beard which had yelled at the ends completed the picture. His husband didn't seem to mind the beard or the girth. Then again Mark thick black beard which he had woven into intricate plates was the poster boy of a Tolkien or Pratchett dwarf. He was even on the short side barely reaching four foot seven. Anyone stupid enough to call him Gorden's little elf got a broken nose for the bother.

"Yeah you would, Gorddy." Mark tugged his husband's beard. "Be better if they little more open to non-humans. Getting into a drinking contest with krogan is a good time."

"Only you…" Gorden scoffed. "And Shepard, I've seen her do it, drink a krogan under the table once when we were all still serving together."

"We biotics burn off the alcohol quickly, what can I say?" Mark prideful showed a flaw of dark energy.

"You can still kill your liver, a krogan well he has a few extra he can run through before he's in danger."

"Nag nag nag." The shorter man elbowed his lover in the gut before kissing him on the cheek, "One would think you took lessons from my mother."

"Which one?"

Mark chuckled. "My krogan one of course."

This earned the burly man a round of laughter from all the others.

"How did you get a krogan mother anyway?" This came from Abby. She still didn't know a lot about the individual members of the Razers. She only knew each of them had ties to each other either though battle, familiar relations or by some strange coincidence because their lives had been touched by Shepard.

"Pretty long story. The jest of it is my mother Zalena was running her crew on Omega, the Talons and ran into a busted up member of the Blood Pack. At first Mom's squad was going to finish the job but she put an end to that and took Gothal home with her. Patched her up and well things went from there. Mom was already pregers with me, don't know who my dad, is. Don't think my mom knows either. Just some guy she had a fling with. Don't care.

"Gothal was all the 'dad' I needed. She raised me pretty much the krogan way. Taught me how to fight, to carry myself, to survive. Being a short human well there are sorts of bullies out there, kids are the worst. But when your other mom is a krogan you stop being bullied very quickly." He laughed. "I got real good at head-butting. Even took my 'rites of passage' on Omega. Because of the genophage I'm the only kid Gothal will ever have. They may not be officially married, but my Moms pretty much are.

"And I wouldn't have'em today if it weren't for Doc Mordin and Shepard. They live in the Gazou district on Omega."

"I hear the Collector's plague hit that area hard." Jarvis said.

Mark nodded. "Yeah, luckily it didn't take Gothal. But then they locked themselves their apartment, Mom wanted to go wipe out a few of the vorcha but she wasn't about to leave Gothal by herself. It's part of why I am here, whatever T'Soni wants, I'll make sure she gets."

Gaider rested his hand on the shorter man's shoulder. "Glad to have you along, but still surprised T'Soni signed you on."

"Because my Moms are Talons?" Mark questioned back

The other nodded.

"Yeah that whole thing was a fuck up for sure. That contract brought a schism to the Talons to be sure. My Moms sided with their top Lieutenant. When she took over the group the Moms joined her, so did several others. The Talons have a new direction. Pretty sure T'Soni knows about that. But she's also the sort of woman that doesn't hold the crimes or the legacies of one's parents over them."

"Or their sisters." Abby added in a much softer voice. Her lover placed a three taloned hand upon her shoulder. She placed her own upon it and squeezed

"She'll come around." Jarvis said.

"Clearly you haven't been paying attention to the stories I've been telling you about her. Ash is one stubborn bitch. It's what makes her a fantastic solider, but it also makes her nearly impossible to get along with at times. It's gonna take something big for her to see the light. I just hope it doesn't take the Reapers to do it."

Des'Zahn shook her head. "We delivered the message to as per T'Soni's orders, what comes of it is not our problem, not even for you Abby. I'm sorry. But we have a more important task at hand people. Our primary objective is still on the board. We need to move out before the Shadow Broker's team moves in and neutralizes our target. Naga'sadow is counting on us to be in position at 0600. She acquires the asset for extraction and we neutralize any threat that follows. And believe me there will be plenty.

"The Shadow Brokers people saw us 'tying one on' and will no doubt underestimate us believing we are too drunk or hung over to be any threat to them." The Huntress looked to Abby. "In fact your sister's performance might well have sold it to Fats. That's a plus on our side. Now I suggest we all get out of here to keep up the façade. "

The huntress gained a chorus of aye-ayes from her teammates. By the time Ash's taxi arrived the parking lot was vacant of the Razors Gambit


	11. Back Here Again

Chapter 11: Back Here Again

Twenty years ago, on Jartar in the Dis system, a batarian survey team discovered the corpse of a living ship they called Leviathan. They found it at the bottom of a crater. According to them, the ship was a billion years old. It 'disappeared' after they left the system, but the batarians claimed that it hadn't existed at all. The salarian scientists, who had done their own recon and had seen the crater and apparent corpse of the living ship, issued complaints, but they were not fully followed through as there was no true proof the batarians had done anything illegal. Even if they had, it would have been a case of claim-jumping and thus on the low end of priorities for the Council

There was a darker truth about the Leviathan of Dis, it was in fact Sovereign. Dr. Qian the project lead of the Sidon Facility found the Reaper in a state of hibernation. How he found it after the batarians and squirreled away was never truly known

It was there that Qian became involved with illegal experimentation with alien AI technology. Back then Sanders along with the other personnel thought the 'relic' was Prothean, others believed it predated them. The truth of was kept from them all. Qian deliberately kept his people in the dark. He treated his people like lab-monkeys, running data he gathered from his tests and experiments. Qian knew all of the details about the artifact; where it was, what it was, what it did.

Qian had become indoctrinated by his constant connection to the ship, a ship which he had allowed no other to see or interact with. All his work, his notes and even Sovereign came into the possession of Saren and well the rest of that story was well known.

Nearly two years ago Shepard had come to Grissom Academy seeking these two decade old memories from Director Sanders. Answers Sanders was more than willing to give after all if it wasn't for Shepard, Elysium would have fallen and with it her father Jon Grissom, the namesake of the very Academy the _Normandy_ was now docking with.

Shepard as was her nature stood behind Joker's leather pilots chair with her left arm resting upon the top. At her side was David and at his was Jack. What threw both Jack and David off at first was that the Commander wasn't in her normal black and red N7 armour. She was in her dress blues with gold she had so many ribbons and medals pinned to her chest it's a wonder her uniform top didn't sage from the weight.

When Jack quirked an eyebrow Shepard shrugged, "Sometimes the dress blues are far more effective than a hardsuit and a pistol."

"Pft…not bloody likely."

"It's a station filled with kids, Jack. Leave your side arm besides a biotic is never without a weapon."

"Yeah…okay fine." she looked at David and agreed a station full of kids was no place to bring a gun. Besides Jack wanted to show Sanders that she was a responsible person, worthy of being the Kid's guardian or to be around kids in general. Not something a few months ago Jack would have ever entertained let alone be willing to do.

"This is the _SSV Normandy SR2_ requesting a vector and berth." Joker announced over the comm. it only took a fraction of a second for the station to respond.

*We are aware of your arrival _Normandy_. You are cleared for approach on docking bay four.* the voice didn't belonged to Grissom Academy docking manager but to Kahlee Sanders. *And we look forward to welcoming our newest student.*

"Yeah we'll see about that," Jack muttered under her breath. She had serious reservations about leaving her 'son' here. Back on the Teltin Facility the Needle men talked about piggy-backing on the Ascension Project. And Jack was also privy to the information that the Academy had been infiltrated not once by twice by Cerberus.

The first had been the fucker mole Jiro Toshiwa who used experimental drugs (and Jack was sickened by this) developed back when they used a lot of them on her to heighten her biotic potential on some girl named Gillian Grayson.

Sanders and her security Chief Hendel Mitra escaped with the child to the Migrant Fleet. The quarians took the kid in and Mitra stayed with her as her official guardian. The kids' father the worthless scum bag that he was actually relented and let the child disappear. But in the end he took his balls out of his purse and faced off against the King of All Assholes and told TIMmy to stick it where the sun don't shine if they ever tried to go after his daughter again.

Of course Cerberus had tried. They raided the Flotilla and the losers luckily ended up fucking killed by quarian Marines. But Jack knew how relentless Cerberus was better than anyone. They had hunted her ever since her escape from Teltin. They wouldn't let the Graysons go. Why would they? Cerberus dumped a lot of creds into those programs. And they wanted a return on their investment—with interest.

Reading all the documents QOFGS made the Cheerleader give her, Jack also knew about the whole screwed ups super soldier crap and that some guy with a sword tracked Grayson the guy not the kid down on Omega and yanked him back to their oh so secret hidey hole. Of course Shepard knew about it to and passed that gold nougat to her CO Anderson who went with a bunch of Alliance turian soldiers to take out TIMmy-King of All Assholes.

Didn't really work though, 'cus the mother-fucking KOAA was still alive and kicking. Never fucking trust Cerberus. Never! The guy with the sword went to the Academy to get some vengeance or some shit and ended up with Anderson capping the fucker's knees and leaving him for dead.

Yeah Jack wasn't so sure David was going to be safe at Grissom Academy, Cerberus sooner or later would ransack the joint once more and then David's back in the shit Shepard rescued him from. Dammit! Why in the hell didn't she spatter Archer's head into paste the moment Miri told him 'I have something worse, I have a Jack.'

Shepard painted a pretty picture about the Academy, but Jack knew enough about the Alliance's fuck-up with the BAaT program or more commonly known as Brain Camp not to trust things that seem too good. She wanted to know all about this Ascension Program. Of course QOTGS said _that_ part of the Academy was for the biotic students. But Grissom taught humanity's best and brightest whether their talents lay in maths, science, art, or music or even creative writing like they come out the next Beethoven, Einstein or Tesla or Da Vinci or all those other big name guys.

Jack turned to her 'son' and smiled trying to give the Kid some confidence in taking on a new life, in a new place filled with new people. Jack was an expert at that. She had reinvented herself more than a dozen times over and over but she always came back to the true self. To Jack the psychotic biotic.

"You ready for this Kid?"

"Is it going to be quiet?" the young man asked his voice filled with trepidation.

"This place is a school filled with lots of kids so probably not. You rugrats can get loud, obnoxious and don't get me started on booger eating. That crap is just nasty." Jack teased.

The boy smiled back. He even chuckled. Jack never told him an untruth. He liked her. A lot. He was glad she was his guardian. He liked having a 'mom.' It was something he never recalled having and Jack never having a son….the negatives balanced into positives.

He knew that Commander Shepard: Spectre and Queen of the Girl Scouts and her wife were ultimately responsible for him like his brother was supposed to be. It was for the Commander that he counted the days he was living. But it was Jack … that brought him happiness when memories became loud. Jack made it quiet, mostly when she was making terrible jokes. He loved her terrible jokes. Booger–eating…that was funny. And so he smiled.

"Square root of 912.04 is 30.2...it will be Quiet."

"It will be." Shepard made a vow. "Grissom Academy is nothing like where you came from David. And there are a lot of smart kids just like you. You're going to like it there, make new friends. You'll see and...anytime you need to talk Liara and I will be there for you and so will Jack – most definitely."

"You bet your shiny bald head, I will." Jack promised.

The Kid smiled.

 **Twelve.**

"Come on Kid. Let's go check this place out." Jack put a hand on the boy's back guiding her charge along with Shepard to _Normandy'_ s airlock.

Dr. Chakwas was already waiting for them there, in her hand was an OSD; she greeted him kindly as she always did. An expression David had never actually seen on anyone at Atlas Station. Their faces were always so serious, cold, hard. Even his brother's became more and colder as Overlord become more and more important to him because The Illusive Man would always have his hide if brother didn't get results.

Jack looked to the Kid then to the Doc; of course she'd be there. She was completely responsible for bringing the Kid back to some kind of normal. He wasn't even green any more since a day ago she took the Kid off the plant-juice that was supposed to make him heal faster 'cus he was sucking in CO-2 as well as O2. According to the Kid that was day

 **Eleven.**

QOTGS still didn't know the Kid was counting the days and it wasn't her place to say anything about it. It was the boy's. So Jack stayed quiet. Because it could be one of the Kids's quirks like his square root thingy.

Well as long as the Kid was happy doing his square root thinking or counting **Shepard Days** , Jack was fine with it. Hundred percent fine with it. Let him get to a thousand, Jack thought fuck it let him get to two and then three and then fuck it ten thousand **Shepard Days** and Jack would die a happy old woman. Fuck it why not start counting **Shepard Days** herself?

The number of days QOTGS allowed Jack to be just Jack without judgment, fear that she'd be betrayed or all that crap she had come to expect. She still slept with a gun under her pillow even when she was banging the Cheerleader. Maybe even especially then. Still there was something weird about QOTGS that made you wanna believe in the whole bigger better thing let's save the goddamn universe thing.

 **Day** _ **Fucking-ass-freedom:**_ **150**

 _Thank you Queen of the Girl Scouts….no seriously-fucking thank you…and I won't ever fucking admit it. But I'll be counting too._

The OSD was handed not to David but to Jack **"** David **,** this is holds all your medical records to date. The Academy's doctors will monitor your progress and soon if you maintain the same nutritional regimen you are now, and I know you're not happy with it your body will soon recover." She smiled warmly. "Which means you can eat normal food." She moved and placed her hand in the air as if to give the boy a high five. He mimicked the action; it was his way of shaking hands or giving a hug.

"Good luck, David."

"Square root of 906.01..." David started

"...is 30.1" Chakwas answered.

"Thank you Dr. Chakwas." he kept his head bowed and wrung his hands.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME~ME~ ME

Kahlee Sanders didn't look military. Well not military like Shepard did. Shepard screamed soldier-like she was swaddled in N7 dippers. Sanders…she had the look of some pencil pushing desk jockey. Like Shepard she was wearing Alliance dress blues, but over the uniform was a white lab coat which flared out ever so slightly as she moved. Her sensible shoes with their wedged shaped heels clacked as she walked with quick, confident steps towards the new comers.

Jack watched her with weary eyes. What surprised her was that Sanders looked to be in her mid thirties like Shepard but in truth she was a decade over that. She was average in both height and build, she was fit enough to still move with a spryness of a woman that worked out regularly. Unlike Chakwas who had a lined face, Sander's face was smooth save for a few wrinkles around her eyes, they especially turned up when she laughed or smiled.

She had blonde hair which was streaked though with darker sand, she wouldn't have to worry about getting gray hairs for at another three decades. That was the wonder of modern medicine in this era with people living upwards to 150 if they were lucky rarely looked outwardly they age they truly were.

"Welcome back to Grissom Academy Spectre Shepard."

"Thank you Director." Shepard tilted her head in respect. "Let me introduce you to David Archer and to…Jacqueline Naught his official guardian."

Kahlee graciously returned the salutation. "It's good to you both, David, Miss Naught..." Speaking Jack's 'last name' aloud seemed to give Kahlee a pause as if the word didn't fit right in her mouth.

"Here to see that he's gonna be okay. And um it's just Jack."

"As you wish…Jack. And you David are most welcome. I promise you will be safe here.

David lurked just behind Jack's left side and Shepard's right. Where it was safe. New faces and situations made him uneasy.

"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1"

Kahlee was no stranger to children with autism. She knew they needed routine, structure, stability. They do well with disruptions and unexpected surprises. And like others who struggled with atrium David had invisible walls that separated him from the rest of the world. He tapped his finger tips together and bobbed back and forth.

"Square root of 912.04 is 30.2. Square root of 918.09 is 30.3."

"The math makes him feel better." Jack explained.

"I understand. Grissom has the facilities and staff to aid David. He is not the only autistic student we have. Many of our classes are structured with special needs and focus in mind.

"Before we get to the tedious task of paperwork how about we go on a little tour. The station isn't as large as say Arcturus, but it is comfortable. Our station is divided into wings: Dormitory, Class rooms half for the Ascension Program that focuses on our biotic students, then we have our classes for the Gifted. And they are further divided into the arts and sciences."

Kahlee lead them through a place called Orin hall.

Shepard had heard all of this before and by the sound of it Sanders had given this spiel more than a few times to parents, guardians and perspective students. Jack was listening intently she had to know this place was going to be different than Cerberus.

"Of course we provide basic education however unlike other schools where there is a standard regiment like History, Maths, English and so on our classes target the areas our students excel at."

"What about the biotics?" Jack asked. She had to know it had to be better than Teltin.

"They share the conventional classes with our gifted students, but they have their own training regiments to help them understand just what they are capable of. There is endurance training, how to focus their abilities into a pinpoint accuracy, to channel it into more mundane objects. And the of course how biotics function, what their bodies are going through and how to insure they avoid the basic pitfalls such as overloading their implants or even simple nutrient maintenance as you and Spectre Shepard know you biotics burn a lot of calories."

"Yeah we can pack in alright." Jack said. "Some of burn hotter than others. How do you test out that the kids can do, you pit them against each other?"

"Absolutely not." Sanders said in a no-nonsense voice. "In fact striking another student with biotics is strictly forbidden. The older students who are going onto the military track will learn to use their abilities against others but we use holographic training dummies just like those found in Armax Arsenal Arena or indeed boot-camps."

Jack just grunted. Seeing was believing. Still of the students they past none of them looked haggard or terrified. They looked ...happy. Others looked well bookish like the salarian—like their heads were all up in their books and studies.

Shepard patted Jack on the shoulder. "Give this place a chance. I told you it's safe here. Look at David."

The Kid wasn't afraid, he was...curious.

"Jack I know you may have misgivings but the Ascension Program is a sanctuary for many of our students who unfortunately face prejudice from their own parents. Some parents...will only visit their children once a year if that, others tend to forget about them as if they had locked them a way s in some tower. Here we not only help our students deal with their biotics but also their abandonment and childhood isolation. Here we give them a family. They have sanctuary. We try to give that same feeling to all our students. "

Both Jack and Shepard faced their fair share of suspicion, prejudice and outright scorn and hatred for their abilities. It's hardly surprising that parents who find out their kid can lift a five tonne truck with their mind and they get tetchy and decide to drop their kids off some place deemed 'safe' and forget about them.

Sanders escorted the trio through the Academy showing them the class rooms and then to the labs where David was quite content to stay and start 'play' with all the gadgets, gizmos and whatchamacallits. He even wandered up to a whiteboard and changed a single decimal point in a integer in a sequence of equations that changed the outcome significantly.

"Better now." David said. "The other was wrong."

The students turned and looked at the young bald headed boy in wonder. It was if Einstein was shown up by Stephen Hawkings.

"We've been working on that for hours..." a young dark haired kid smiled. "We should have seen that before. Thanks...um..."

"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1" David answered.

"This is David." Sanders introduced. "He will be starting here soon. We're on our grand tour."

"That's cool." a blonde girl smiled. ". I'm ... and thick head over here is... Welcome to Grissom."

"Thank you." David muttered.

Next on the tour was the atrium and its forests. Now only did the gardens provide a much needed park for the students and faculty to relax it was also the station's main 'oxygen factory'. Following the atrium were the dorms the library, rec-rooms, and the gyms.

Here they paused watching as fitness instructors drilling kids in various exorcises. Some of the older ones actually wore ensign uniforms. What caught Jack's attention as well as Shepard was the students were barely paying attention to their instructor who was struggling to keep the group not only listening to his lesson but absorbing it.

"Now listen up."

The kids were still not paying attention. It took three attempts for the teacher to finally get his students to give him the attention he sought but even then it wasn't undivided.

"Prangly, an unshielded opponent approaching at two o'clock—shielded opponent approaching at twelve o'clock. Both holding heavy pistols. What is the most effective way to take them down?" Yusnaan quizzed

"Shockwave. Tat—tat-tat-blam down!" the boy grinned.

The others laughed. The instructor grimaced

"You're such a Double-Dee, Prangly." Scoffed one of the other students.

Jack moved past Shepard, Sanders and the Kid to see more.

"Incorrect."

The others chuckled, a girl punched Prangly in the shoulder. "Double-Dee!"

"Rodriguez?" Yusnaan now addressed the question to the young woman.

"Throw...get them off their feet then a shockwave." the girl said with a prideful smile believing she got it right.

"Wrong! That will get you splattered." Jack groused pushing her way further forward. "Shockwaves won't touch shielded enemies. That's a good frigging way to get your brains plastered to a wall." She marched up and looked the girl...Rodriguez in the eyes making her shudder and move back. "First you better make sure your barriers are up. They'll hold out long enough for you to use a singularity to catch them both. Then you warp that mass of energy. It's unstable and then BOOM!" her exclamation caused all the students to jump as well as the instructor. "You just made a biotic explosion plastering their guts to the wall instead of yours." She had all seven students staring at her in mixed awe and terror.

The instructor looked over to Sanders for some sort of explanation on whom this strange tattooed woman was.

"Instructor Yusnaan, this is Miss Naught...our newest student's official guardian." Sanders said walking up to the younger woman's side. "And also a very talented biotic."

"Have you ever done that Miss Naught." Rodriguez. "Biotic explosions?"

"Yeah but it takes timing, practice and you have to pay attention. To yourself, your surroundings and to the enemy. And if your in a team, you make sure you do don't do some dumbass thing like get them caught up in some area effect blast. And if you time it right you can set up multiple explosions with their own powers."

She had their rapt attention; there was no joking, teasing or interrupting.

"You. Rodriguez right." Jack pointed to the girl

"Yes Ma'am."

"And Prangly?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Hit the dummy with singularity then you Prangly follow up with a warp." Jack pointed to the target.

Without hesitation the ensigns obeyed. The resulting explosion was not as spectacular as a seasoned biotic but it was impressive. Unexpected there was a small amount of residual backlash causing the students to skitter back. Rodriguez fell on her backside with a grunt.

Jack reached down and yanked the girl back to her feet. "That happened because you didn't have your barriers up. You'll get killed that way."

"That. Was. Awesome!" Prangly cheered. He wasn't the only one cheering all the others were as well, as if they had never caused a biotic explosion.

"There are other ways too. Hit your enemy with a stasis field and then quickly with a warp. If you have a teammate have them hit the enemy at the same time with a reave. Crushes their insides into gooey paste. Annihilation field works great too, especially with a singularity. A lift and throw are easy combinations but only work on unshielded enemies. So don't even try it anyone shielded.

"A lift will damage shields, tech-armour but won't touch barriers. Charging will but that puts you directly into enemy path and unless you're good with an omni-blade or warp-slashes didn't even try it. Not until you're a master of biotics and they way you keep running your pie-holes instead of opening your frigging ears during your lessons that will never happen. You'll be Double-Dees forever considering the stupid shit you'll get yourselves into..." she moved up to Rodriguez —invading her personal space and leaning in just a little more so she was staring hard in the girls large brown eyes. "And if you never keep your barriers up, forever will be as long as your next breath. Get me?!"

They all immediately snapped to attention and offered a very crisp salute.

"We get you ma'am" seven voices said as one.

Yusnaan looked to Sanders who was impressed. Jack actually got Class Beta -2 to listen without scolding them into submission or tossing them so many demerits they lost all privileges no omni-games, sims or down time in atrium. Some even went into lockdown for several weeks.

Of course many of them were lashing out, more than half of the Beta-2s were abandoned by their families because they were biotics. Those who had families that hadn't left them they may as well have. As those particular families only visited maybe once or twice a year if that out of some obligatory expectations, and yet they still saw having a biotic in the family as a blight on the family name.

"Double-Dee?" Shepard asked in a hushed tone to Sanders.

"It's a slang term some of our students devised for one another, one that is heavily discouraged in using." Sanders said scathing. She also had a look of one embarrassed by her students while she was trying to make a good first impression.

"Means dumb-as-dog-shit." Yusnaan said sheepishly. "Guess it's sort of the same as drill sergeants calling recruits maggots all the time. But of course instructors never say it to their students.- Not directly." He had the look of one that used the slang behind his students back in reference to them.

Shepard couldn't argue that point. It was the same. Still kids could be a bit harsh, she worried for David.

"The Square root of 906.01 is 30.1." David muttered, his fingers wringing nervously. Of cause the biotic blast would have unsettled him He was a literal thinking individual, metaphors were lies to him and he certainly wasn't used to teasing good natured or otherwise. To him the constant ribbing the students were giving one another would have been seen as hostility and Jack had just shown them how to blow someone up.

"It's fine David." Shepard said trying to ease the young man's nervousness. He was going to have to become accustomed to biotics, other young people, coping with normalcy something he didn't have back at Atlas Station.

Jack turned and left the quaking students who had yet to drop their rigid attentive stance it wasn't until Shepard pointed it out that the ex-con tossed over her shoulder.

"At ease."

And as one they all went into parade rest. Feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind their backs, and their eyes staring a head, fixed upon the nothingness just over the adults' right shoulder.

"I have to say Jack I'm quite impressed with how you handled the Beta-2s. They respond well to your...instruction." Sanders committed.

"Pft, they just need a hand that knows what it's like to be them and won't take their shit." Jack smirked with a shrug. "Not a big deal."

Sanders wasn't so convinced to her it was a very big deal, and an idea started to form in her very calculating mind. "Shall we continue our tour? We can make a stop at the cafeteria, I'm sure you all must be hungry by now and ...well interested in the sort of the food David will have on a daily basis."

"Yeah I could do with some grub. What about you Kid?"

"Yes. But I'm tired of soft food. I'd like a burger."

Jack clapped the lad on the shoulder and shook her head. "Sorry until Chakwas give you the go ahead that's not going to happen. Mushy stuff for you."

The four made their way though the school, and entered the cafeteria, David's steps became slow, uncertain. His hand shot out and grabbed Jack's. She said nothing; she knew she was the only one he ever allowed to get close enough for physical contact.

Jack saw a sea of kids, some as young as seven others bordering on adulthood. All talking and laughing: to the Kid this would be a wall of overwhelming, terrifying, nonsensical sound he was trying his best to ignore.

"You got this Kiddo." She whispered. "I know it's loud but…it's not a bad loud."

"It's not a bad loud." David agreed.

As she guided her guests to the buffet line Sanders took note of David's unease which reminded of Gillian, and the many walls she had surrounding her. She recalled the girl always picked the same table in the farthest corner of the cafeteria next to a table that seemed to always be empty. It was here Sanders choose to escort her guests after they made their selections.

Jack looked at the tray which harkened back to every prison she had ever been on, hell even the _Normandy_ used the same sort of slotted trays. But unlike the slop in the prisons or even Garners, this place very descent stuff. She could dig in with gusto.

Unfortunately David's stomach was still far too sensitive but he was able to at least consume soup along with his nutritional supplements. Dr. Chakwas had of course forwarded her recommendations for the nutritional supplements to the station's own physician who had intern alerted the cooks within the cafeteria to David's dietary requirements.

Though he looked as if wanted to longingly sink his teeth into a thick juicy double-burger Jack was currently devouring.

Any questions Jack had or even Shepard had Sanders answered effectively and with efficiency as she had a dozen times with many many parents and guardians over the years.

"So David," Sanders finally turned to the young man. "What do you think of the Academy?

"I like the labs." he said honestly. "No robots. This is good. I want to build machines to help Shepard fight the things that are coming. I saw it in the robots' …." David struggled with the idea of flash-drives, memory OSDs or even the collective consciousness on the geth consensus. In the end the boy landed on the word "memories. The Old Machines. They are coming." He shuddered and began to recite the square roots until Jack put a tender hand on the middle of the lad's back.

It had an almost immediate effect, the kid quieted. Shepard was impressed. The smiled to herself thinking she'd have to remember that trick when it came to her own daughters once they were born. Who knew Jack had a maternal bone in her body? And if someone who never had one or even a nurturing environment could possess such abilities then there was hope for Shepard had had both. In any case David Archer's lot had improved significantly now he had a home, he had a very caring if not overly protective guardian and he had a new start.

Of course that start began in Kahlee Sanders' office with a vid-comm conference call with an asari lawyer who worked exclusively on retainer for the T'Soni family and a lot of paper work. The lawyer was there to insure that though the T'Soni-Shepard family was in fact David's benefactors it was Jacqueline Naught that was the boy's legal and recognized guardian.

There was an ancient Thessian law that allows a mother, Trusted or in this case Benefactor to name a guardian-protector over their daughters (in David's instance it was son). Of course the Trusted and guardian-protector could be one and the same but often times it wasn't, especially if the mother was a matriarch with many duties that took her from home. The guardian -protector was there for the child on a more personal level- a person the daughter could connect to.

When Liara was still a youngling not quite in her Maiden stage her own guardian-protector was Shiala. She was always there for Liara to connect to, to go to when her mother's great legend became too much for a child of a very powerful Matriarch to deal with.

With David, the legend of Commander Shepard first human Spectre was far too much for him to connect to. She was the great hero, the myth. She was too big. The Commander was the greatest hero of all time Even if he counted the days Shepard gave him, it was Jack the boy had connected to, related to. Jack he knew. To the boy's mind, Jack the psychotic-biotic was his Lone-Survivor. And he wanted to be like her.


	12. Sleeping Gods

Chapter 12: Sleeping Gods

Jack stared at the far wall of her little hidey-hole in the underbelly of the _Normandy_. At this time yesterday she would have been spending two hours with David playing the old retro game Fallout Four on her omni-tool. He needed the time to settle before the hour and half of his physiotherapy session with Chakwas. After that was cool down time, which he took alone in order to collect himself. Most of the time he spent it doing math problems. The Kid needed the quiet.

After that came sludge-food in the mess hall then an hour more of gaming after or maybe a movie then sleep. Then things changed. Jack never imagined herself being anyone's guardian or carrying that much about anyone to let them get close after all the crap she'd been through. It was just easier to stick a knife in if they did. But the Kid…got close. She broke down like a pussy in Shepard's quarters and after all that she ends up the Kid's guardian….his foster mother. Man the universe sure had a fucking weird sense of humor.

That wasn't the strangest thing. Not by half. That came after the goodbyes had all been said and done. Shepard disappeared up the gangplank of the _Normandy_ leaving a moment of time for Sanders to talk to Jack alone.

" _Listen Jack, it's a bit of a crazy idea I have and I know there are far more cons against this than there are pros. But I know Spectre Shepard would never have allowed you to be a member of her crew much less the guardian over a vulnerable life like David's if she didn't have faith in your abilities or your conviction to your mission with her. And I saw how David responded to you, how quick he was to calm with just your hand on his back."_

" _What are you getting at?" Jack took a defensive stance. "Yeah me and the Kid share a lot in common so what?"_

" _After your mission is finished…would you consider taking a teaching position here."_

 _Jack stared._

 _Sanders held up a hand forestalling the protests she knew were coming. "Those students in the atrium today, you had their full and undivided attention. In all their years of being here, they were never that attentive. They respond to you and I think you are the best chance for them not only to understand and control their abilities but survive what is going to come. David said it…the Reapers are coming and if our children are to survive them they need training, they need someone who can help them do that. That's you, Jack. You are their best hope."_

" _Then they're fucked. I got a whole list of priors as long as my arm." Jack pointed out._

" _Funny." Sanders smiled. "There is a Spectre seal on your records. They only thing within your files I can even access is a Spectre issued pardon. Apparently it pays having friends in very high places that can pull a lot of strings. All I'm asking is that you give my offer some consideration. I have friends in very high places too, Jack. If you want this I can make it happen. Just give it some thought. Those kids need someone_ **not** _like you...they need you. The real deal."_

Shepard needed her, this mission needed her, the Kid needed her now….more kids. Jack didn't sign on for this shit. She didn't sign on to be anyone's mommy. But then she had signed up…literally. Well Jacqueline Naught had. It was her name on the Kid's adoption papers.

But then….well damn it felt fucking good to tell those kids how use their powers. And if someone didn't keep their eye on that Rodriguez girl she was going to buy the _big one_ cuz' she sure wouldn't keep her barriers up. Stupid girl. And fuck Shepard, for making Jack think like she was some sort of goddamn leader.

Hell at least she had some good source material. All she had to do was to regurgitate all that team-building, team unity follow god-damn orders.

Fuck it!

Goddamn right Jack would step up and teach these kids. Someone had to. Instructor Yusnaan was too soft, a fucking pussy. Those kids got dumped by their families cuz' they could bend dark energy to their will. And they were never gonna' listen to a softy like Yusnaan cuz' he ain't never lived a life where he was just a tool, a weapon something to be discarded like a used up thermo clip. But Jack knew. She knew what it was like to be David and she knew what it was like to be those Double-Dee kids. And she knew what it was like when someone mighty and terrible—all knowing, all powerful believed in you.

Fucking Queen of the Girl Scouts. _**Day of**_ _ **fucking-ass-freedom: 151**_

ME ~ME~ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ME~ME

Shepard kept staring at the galaxy map. The brown dwarf…and the dead Reaper…then the Omega Four Relay. And after that? Hell Shepard didn't even know if they were coming back from attacking the Collector Base. Of course that was something she could never admit.

Words like 'I don't know' would kill a crew quicker than any photon torpedo. Shepard was the skipper of her boat and a skipper always knows what to do even if they don't. An instructor of a bunch of pissed off biotics kids had to be the same. Mighty, terrible, feared and respected. All knowing. All powerful.

That was exactly how the crew saw her.

Terrible. Powerful. All knowing. All powerful. Masterful. A Paragon.

Commander Shepard the first human Spectre—Hero of Elysium. Veteran of the Skillian Blitz, Saviour of Eden Prime, Hero of the Citadel and so many other titles. She could never admit to anyone not even her Trusted how terrified she was of failing, that she may well lose people going through that blasted gate. No. To her crew she had to look positively and utterly confident-undeniable. Her power—undeniable. The crew's trust in her, the Team's trust in her-undeniable. Shepard knew she could bank on it. All of it.

With a swipe of her hand Shepard activated the point-and-go system to bring up the Thorne system with Hawking ETA. The vessel was in orbit of the brown dwarf Mnemosyne. Doubts of TIMmy's information on the derelict Reaper ship hit Shepard hard, but she couldn't afford to have those doubts make her second guess herself or her mission.

The _Normandy_ needed the Reaper IFF. The only way to gain that very critical bit of tech was to go into the dead ship. Only Shepard knew it wasn't truly dead any more than the Leviathan of Dis had been derelict. Something of it had still been active, still capable of indoctrinating Qian.

TIMmy reported he lost contact Dr. Chandana's team shortly after they boarded. There were no answers from initial reconnaissance and TIM refused to commit any more resources to find the answers. And Shepard had to agree with that decision; she didn't want to risk her own people. She looked down from her position at the galaxy map to Chambers, and then she turned her gaze to the skeleton crew manning various stations around the CIC.

She put steel into her spine, walked down the ramp to her personal terminal and hit the ships intercom system. "Shepard to all flagship team members, report to the war room in five. Shepard out."

Chambers gave a curious look to her Commander. She turned back to her terminals trying to study the read outs but failing. "Is everything alright Commander?" the yeoman asked tentatively.

"Five by five, Kelly. Just assembling a team for the next mission." her voice was filled with confidence and reassurance. A voice Chambers believed in, a voice the trusted. She knew without a doubt if she were ever to fall back Shepard would be there to catch her. Of course Kelly wished Shepard would do more than catch her, but the beautiful commander was married. Devotedly and she was about to become a mother to twins. Chambers had to reconcile herself her fantasies.

"Of course Commander." Kelly smiled, trusting her Commander's word.

Shepard moved towards the door to the Research Lab which would lead to the small hall between the armory and the Lab. The Commander still hated the layout of _Normandy_ , if she had six months spare she'd put the ship into dry dock and have Tali do a major overhaul and fix the crappy design. Back on Nos Austra the only thing Tali was able to do was make a paint swap and a redesign of EDI's avatar. There was no time to do anything else, more the pity.

Maybe after the Collector base. Ideally Shepard would have Tali lead a team of engineers in the ship's reconstruction. The armory would be placed in the correct place -in the shuttle bay. Get off the lift, grab your gear and then hit the shuttle. No messing around with deck-hopping which was a stupid-ass idea for a ship's layout. Also she would separate the war room from the QIC.

It was only moments after Shepard entered the war room that her team arrived. Most of them having military experience did not question their Commander. Jack on the other hand had no such compunctions, nor did Kasumi.

"Waz'up Shepard?" Jack said coming in. "We got a mission?"

"Yes. It's time to hit the derelict Reaper ship to gain the IFF that will allow us to go through the Omega Four relay. But there's an issue. Our recent exchange with Grissom Academy brought to light or rather served as a reminder.

"Reaper tech doesn't sleep. A little over twenty years ago the whole Sidon incident with Dr. Qian is proof of that. When I go on that ship there is a very high possibility of indoctrination. We might be lucky but I can't guarantee it. I won't order this. So I am going to ask for two…."

The whole room stepped forward as one- the same move, at same time.

"Looks like you got a little problem Boss." Zaeed chuffed. "Who are you gonna leave behind."

The others laughed.

Shepard felt lighter than helium.

"I should point out the obvious Commander…" Tali said "But you'll need more than just two of us. You needed a tech expert who can pull the Reaper IFF out swiftly and without compromising it. And of course while the techy is working on the IFF you're going to have to protect them. That means either a sniper or a heavy. You're not going to have it any other way. I know you Shepard."

"We all do Shep." Kasumi said. "I don't like the idea of going in there but…you need a tech _and_ a hacker. I'm your girl."

"All due respect Kasumi it isn't hacking our Commander needs, it's an engineer. Someone who knows ship. That's me." Tali said.

"No true." Mordin said. "I can easily do this as well. I will go."

"Mordin…." Tali started but was interrupted.

"I already said a prayer over one young mother, I won't do it again."

All heads swiveled to Tali. Amazed. None more so than Garrus

"Love?" the single word held all the hopes and dreams of an expectant daddy.

Tali glared at Mordin for outing her.

"This isn't something for public consumption." Shepard cautioned. "Mordin…"

"I'm _not_ pregnant. Yet…" Tali said swiftly "so you don't get to pull me from missions, Commander. If you all want to know Mordin told me this morning that the splicing produced three viable embryos for re-implantation. I said _I_ wanted to be the one tell my husband. Thanks for that, Doc." her voice dripped in cold sarcasm. "Anyone ever tell you about 'spoilers?'" there a frown not of anger but of disappointment lacing her words. Of course the expression was hidden behind the tinted visor but there was no mistaking it in both the tone of her voice and the stance her body took.

It was comforted only by Garrus's hand on her shoulder, one that conveyed both his pleasure at hearing the news he was going to be a father and one of support, privately telling her that it was okay he found out this way.

"Shepard," the young quarian looked to the human. "You're going to be a young mother too. So out of respect, do us both a favour and don't pull those lines on me about motherhood and going into danger. That's not a card worthy of playing for either one of us."

Shepard nodded: agreeing, they were better than that. Of course her role in her immediate family placed her right along side Garrus. She was more or less 'the daddy'. "Indeed." was her only response.

"I want all who are going with me to take along a heavy weapon in-conjunction with their normal arsenal. The M-920 Cain eats up a lot of ammo but it's effective against armor, shields and barriers. In a dead Reaper ship there is no telling what we will find. Jack that one is all yours."

"The Nuke-Launcher. Love it. All that power! Blam!"

"Just like you the psychotic-biotic." Zaeed scoffed light-heartedly. "Big ass gun, storming a Cerberus base. That's gotta be Christmas for you."

Jack only smirked.

"Just make sure to _not_ to use it in a tiny area like a pressurized tin-can or you blast us all into star-dust." Tali chided.

"Yeah? You'll be singing a different tune if one of those monster-crabzilla things come stomping around. Then you'll be glad I have this baby."

"Then I hope we don't encounter one them." the engineer said evenly.

"Tali. You'll take the ML-77 missile launcher; I'll take the particle beam we took off the Collectors back on Horizon. Like you said we needed to use caution, so no one use them unless I give the go-ahead. Miranda take the M-622 Avalanche."

"You think to freeze any husks then to shatter them with shockwaves. Good idea." The former Loyalist agreed.

"I want us in and out as swiftly as possible." Shepard said. "No exploring, no looking for resources, we get in, get the IFF and get out."

Just like that the team had been assembled. An engineer and a heavy hitter. Tali wasn't a surprise to bring along but taking Jack was. Then again her power-house biotics in conjunction with Shepard made for exceptionally effective countermeasures against enemy swarms.

"So that's the team then?" Zaeed was hoping to be chosen. And yet he respected Shepard's choice. A techy, and a power-house, and of course the Cerberus agent still he was just as deadly with an assault rifle—more so than Jack. He saw no reason why he couldn't have joined the assault team.

Grunt looked dejected, like a boy not even chosen last to join in any PE class team-sports but told he wasn't wanted at all. The same expression was on Garrus and Thane's faces. Even Miranda looked as if she swallowed a bee.

But unlike the Collector ship or Horizon Shepard was not going to risk more lives than she had to to possible exposure to indoctrination technology.

"It is." Shepard said in a tone that said: 'this is the end of it' "Mordin I want you and Chakwas to continue to monitor our vitals especially the alpha and beta waves. If you see any abnormalities alert us at once. We may have to pull out and find another way to secure the IFF. But as it stands we're it. No tourist day. We're only there for one reason and one reason only. Dismissed."

Privately Jack hoped there was going to be _**Day of**_ _ **fucking-ass-freedom: 152**_

Because she sure as hell didn't want her brains to be mush. Especially now that she had a whole big reason to continue living.

ME ~ME~ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ME~ME

Orbiting Mnemosyne was a two kilometer long ship with the unmistakable profile of a Reaper. Its 'fingers' splayed out before it like the hand a demon grasping at the stars for lost souls to harvest.

Scans showed power signatures were fluctuating in localized areas, but they were far weaker than a ship of that size would indicate. The reapers seemed to maintain a mass effect field that has kept it from falling into the failed star, but massive holes had been blasted and melted into parts of the hull and remained unrepaired. The only logical conclusion is that the Reaper 'died' or was at least reduced to minimal functioning a long time ago. Whatever weapon did that Shepard was very keenly interested in.

Silently the _Normandy_ flew in closer, utterly dwarfed by the dead ship. And as they drew closer still…the ship started to buck almost as if she were protesting getting this close to a Reaper.

"What's with all the chop, Joker?" Shepard said running up to the helm. She had to grab hold of the back of his chair to keep on her feet.

"Doing my best," he said through gritted teeth from the effort of keeping the ship aloft. "The wind is gusting up to 500 kph." The turbulence bounded the _Normandy_ around like a child's toy. Only Joker's superior skill as a pilot kept her as steady as she was. "There's another ship along side the Reaper. No IFF but LADAR thinks the silhouette is geth."

"Guess we know why the science team stopped reporting in." Shepard said candidly.

Just as suddenly as the _Normandy_ was bouncing it suddenly stopped:

"What just happened?" came a demand for an answer.

"The Reaper's mass effect field is still functioning. We just passed inside their envelope." Joker explained then added a bit more grimly. "Eye of the hurricane huh?"

Shepard simply shook her head and walked back towards the lift. This was one mission she was not looking forward too. She served on the frontlines in several conflicts and never flinched. Never shirked from her duty, even as she faced the impossible or defied the odds countless times and she wouldn't now. But before it was only her life at risk, not her mind, not her soul. And she had never been asked to risk the minds and souls of her people before now. Even knowing the dangers her people stepped up and volunteered. She couldn't have been more proud.

Taking the lift down to the shuttle bay, Shepard was greeted by Tali and Jack, both suited up and ready for deployment.

"Let's make this quick. In and out."

"You know Shepard; if you weren't married I'd say you're talking about bedding a whore or maybe an asari consort." Jack teased trying to ease the growing tension.

For her part Shepard simply let the jibe go. Sometimes you cracked the whip, sometimes you let things slide. This was one of the latter moments. "Very funny, Jack." was all she said.

"I do my best."

The trio dropped from _Normandy's_ shuttle bay directly onto the stations hanger platform. It reminded Shepard of her first drop from her ship's predecessor on Eden Prime. An apt comparison she supposed. That's where it all started with just another routine mission. Of course it had been anything but routine missions since then.

Bypassing the airlocks security grid was a simple matter. She might not have Kasumi's specialized hacking abilities but Tali was no slouch when it came to computers and manipulating code.

The blast doors of the outer airlock swooshed open. What greeted them was unexpected.

"No one here to welcome us. That's not good." Tali commented drawing her weapon. As did the other two women.

"TIMmy did say the place went dark just days after our mission to the Collector's ship. I'm not surprised its vacant now." Shepard pointed out.

What greeted them was death. Blood on the walls and charred unrecognizable bodies littering the floor. It seemed to be a running theme with Cerberus facilities. A quick glance at the first corpse revealed the man hadn't died by plasma fire so it was probably not the phantom geth.

Without saying a word Shepard moved towards a bank of computer terminals, if Cerberus was anything it was good at keeping recordings and records of events at each project. It was a good bet that either the project lead Dr. Chandana or one of his minions had made an entry or several that concerned the events around the base. It was as good as place as any to start looking for answers.

Hitting the playback button on the mission logs the trio was greeted with a middle-aged African-American male garbed in a black-white and yellow Cerberus uniform and labcoat.

' **The airlock as been installed in the far end of the holed section. We've begun repressurization for shirtsleeves work. The crew is edgy. I reassure them it is mere nerves, a superstitious reaction to what this hulk represents. The corpse of a vast ancient lifeform.**

' **Privately I can not deny the atmosphere. The angles of the walls seem to press down on you. I find myself clenching my teeth.'**

Angles of the ship, the subtlety of it all, Shiala, Benezia even Saren had all spoke of it. How at first it wasn't even noticeable, but then the 'song' seeped into the mind, clawing at the ear.

"Keep moving." Shepard ordered not giving the bodies a second glance.

To the outside view if one didn't look too closely at the windows that overlooked the Reaper ship one could almost believe themselves in any other space station Cerberus or Alliance. The illusion was made even more complete with the added gear lockers that aligned the hallways leading from the landing bay to deeper into the base. At the next junction there was another line of terminals.

Knowing her commander as she did, Tali swiftly accessed any logs. This was not Chandana but a much younger Caucasian man.

' **We finished cataloguing specimens from A2-03 to BO-16. No evidence of active nanotechnology noted. Dr. Chandana believes they would have decayed over the past 37 million years. There is not enough data to support his claim. His search for the truth is patently obvious. I am concerned. Chandana has been staring at the samples for hours. He says he's listening to them…'**

Nanotechnology that would explain a great deal: the shifting bulkheads, the spontaneous creation of rooms, amongst other things, spikes that turned people into husks or the horrid the conversion chambers that perverted humans into scions, abominations and much worse-like the praetorians.

The nanotechnology would also explain the ease of the biotech used by the Collectors, things like their stasis pods and their seeker swarms. It must also be how the Reapers converted so many humans so very quickly at Eden Prime and in the Colonies of the dead. Bioengineered nanotechnology

The four moved down the short length of the corridor to the aforementioned Airlock in Chandana's' logs. As soon as the airlock opened the whole ship tilted, almost as if age old cold engines were trying to restart.

* _Normandy_ to shore party.*

"What just happened?"

*The Reaper put up kinetic barriers. I don't think we can get through from our side."

"As curious as I am about Reapers I would rather not be trapped inside one." Tali said.

"Not the only one. This means we'll have to take down the barrier generators from in here." Shepard touched her radio ear-piece "Any idea where they are?"

It wasn't Joker who answered but EDI. *At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is wreck's mass effect core. Sending the coordinates now. Be advised this core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude.*

"So when we take down the barriers to escape the ship falls into the planet core."

*And that means everyone dies. Yeah. Got it.* his jibes became worse the more worried he was.

"If any pilot can get off this thing before it reaches crush depth it's you. We'll make a sweep for saviors and recover whatever information we can find. Stand by."

*Aye-aye. Good hunting.*

Just as

"Lots of dead people. " Jack looked at the charred bodies littering the catwalks. "Nothing new there."

"At least they are dead and not converted into some monstrosities." Miranda said softly.

Tali hit another computer kiosk. It showed a recording of two men obviously recorded from one of the CCTV cameras from above in what was the living habitat. What was curious was not the men themselves but the topic of their conversation. They sharing the same memories over a wife named Halley, a brother's wedding and anger management issues. And there were stockings—the sort with the seam up the back, apparently it was the only day the 'husband' had ever seen his wife in them. The exact same memories…

"This thing was screwing with them." Jack groused. "If I start sharing memories of banging Rocket Face or Blue I'm going to be pissed."

"You're not the only one." Tali retorted.

"Yeah well I know Liara only has eyes for me. And I trust my bond with her more than anything. Still, hold on to that anger, Jack. It's real. So trust it." Shepard cautioned.

"Pft. First time anyone told me my anger management issues were a good thing." the ex-con said dryly. But she took Shepard's meaning. Jack's anger was something solid—almost tangible. She couldn't help cut a glance to Miri and wanted to kick herself for it because she saw stormy gray eyes looking right back at her.

The corners of those luscious full lips were pulled back in the tiniest smile. You really had to know Miri…er…the cheerleader to know it was there. Something solid. Tangible. fuck it was only really really good hate sex. Nothing more. It couldn't possibly be more.

"All of you concentrate on what you know to be real. Maths, equations, formulas, engineering things, poker…pool. Hell even the way to bend the power of dark energy to your will. Anything that locks your mind into a sequential pattern. Keep frosty and keep focused."

 _Keep telling yourself it's just hate sex, dumbass._ Jack scolded herself. She saw the tell-tail scratch of collarbone, apparently Miri… _ **no**_ The Cheerleader was having the same issues. Jack couldn't hide her own slip of a fragmented smile if The Queen of The Girl Scouts had ordered her not to.

Heading down the right catwalk Shepard barely descended down the very small flight of stairs when Jack bust out a warning: "Marks!"

There was no mistaking the hissed wheeze of husks drawing in air. Swarming like flies from road kill the husks ran towards new flesh

"There are high pressure cases by the husks. "Tali called out. Her arm with the Omni tool outstretched and already activated.

"Right! Blow them blow the husks!" Miranda echoed.

Both Jack and Shepard sent a wave of dark energy into crates at the same moment Tali and Miranda used their omni tool to send overload pulses. The crates and the husks erupted into a small plume of fire and dead meat.

Shepard seized pointed rounded the corner of more stable shipping crates and fired her N& Eagle directly into the head of a husk that had managed to avoided being eviscerated by the explosion that took out its brethren

Miranda fired the Avalanche into three more husks flanking the Commander, their bodies frozen—solid. Shepard spun on her heel and used a biotic push to shatter the undead cybernetic meatbags.

Two more were distracted by Tali's drone, trying in vain to attack the hovering pink globe. Using an overload pulse the quarian swiftly dispatched them even as Jack sent in a shockwave that caused their bodies to erupt with a tech-enhanced implosion.

"I always wondered if the technology to make husks came from the geth or Sovereign." Jack voice was crisp.

"Geth origin never made sense to me." Tali answered. "This confirms it's from the Reapers."

"A self-replenishing army." Miranda said in disgusted respect. "Why destroy something if you can pervert it and us it against your enemies."

"Makes you think about all those poor fucking colonists. What are the Reapers doing to them?" Jack answered with a question.

"Stay focused." Shepard snapped a sharp command. "We've got more bogies on the move."

Once more Tali hit the high pressured crates with overloads just as the swarm of husks rushed.

"This should soften them up." Came a reply from the eager little quarian.

"I'll destroy you! Fucking space zombies!"

"Eat this!"

This time the trio of biotics focused their abilities in one unified attack: pull-throw-slam.

Husks were crawling up from under the catwalk not unlike scurrying cockroaches, mindless-mechanical-soulless-space zombies, rushed heedless of their imminent demise or the destruction erupting all around them. They had only one purpose - destroy organics.

"More coming on the right!" Shepard warned.

"On it!" came a chorus of voices behind her.

Just as three were put down via shockwaves, flares and shotgun pulses four more clunked up from the left.

"Where in the hell are they all coming from?!" Jack shouted above the din of battle not expecting an answer and she did not receive one.

Shepard tossed a cluster of lift-grenades in to the frenzied mechanized undead. The husks flew up into the air and evaporated in a plume of gray mist as dark-energy engulfed their emaciated cybernetic bodies.

What was left could only be loosely called shrapnel.

The team had a moment, a singular moment to catch their breath.

Another log entry another computer. It was taken from the same place in the habitat ring of the Cerberus lab, from the same two men who had previously argued over their shared memories. Shepard had named them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

" **Third day with this headache. You think Chandana would let me have a few hours off…." Tweedle Dee complained, his voice slightly slurred. "God Damn!"**

" **What?!" Tweedle Dum spun around**

" **That thing!" Dee Pointed to something off camera." That just…that gray thing! It just appeared-but disappeared when I looked straight at it!" Dee was panicking. "It came out of the damn wall! Where we took off that panel. You had to have seen it!"**

" **I didn't see anything," Dum scoffed. Then in a far more placid tone he pointed to his companion. "You should go lay down."**

" **I'm telling you this ship isn't dead. It knows we're inside it!"**

" **Calm down." Dum was monotone, as if the words he spoke were programmed into him and not his own. "Now, I'm getting a headache."**

"Hallucinations, pain…shared memories." Shepard murmured ticking off all the signs of indoctrination. Since this whole thing began—back on Eden Prime how many headaches had she had that the Spectre passed off as just being a biotic?. True they weren't as bad not the migraines that once plagued Kaidan but still they were bad enough.

And how many nightmares has she had? Some so deep and horrid she had trouble pulling herself out of them. They had become so bad that the only thing to keep the night terrors away was listening to Liara's heartbeat, whether it was the real thing or a recording. Were those dreams oily? Did the fragmented shadows count as oily? The disjointed voices—did that count as sour yellow notes?

"It's like what the Thorian had done to everyone back at Faros." Tali shuddered drawing the Commander's attention back from the introspective pondering her mind had looped into. "Now their minds are linked, almost like a hive mind." then a much softer tone Tali added. "Or the geth."

The only way forward was through a spider's web of catwalks. And as with any spider the nests was filled with corpses. And then there was a single ping—metal upon flesh. But extraordinarily distinctive.

"That was gun fire." Jack stated. "Whoever it was they're a good shot."

"Could be the geth, or one of the Cerberus crew. Either way it's dangerous. Like you said Jack they're a good shot. If it's the latter they may not see us as friendly or any sort of rescue. Their minds are already gone. It it's the former, it more than likely a sniper, keep kinetic and biotic barriers up. Make sure your armor's shields are fully powered. Tali send your drones to scout out who our shooter is."

"Aye-aye Commander. Combat drone away." Tali quickly tapped into her omni tool causing both globes to appear one pink which was Chikkitika and the blue one she still had yet to name and sent them high to the ship's ceiling.

The three pushed forward. Taking sharp turns as they followed the catwalks deeper into the Reaper. How many hours were the 'short sleeves' (shorthand for the Engineering work crew and general laborers) in here laying down all the walk ways? True prefabs made the task easier, even still the time it took was considerable. And just how long was Chandana's crew here for? How long before Shepard and her team started to see 'gray things' (not counting the damned husks and red-fleshed abominations) coming out of the bulkheads? Or was that what Tweedle Dum saw? A husk? Had to be. What else could it have been?

 _ **Stay. Focused. Shepard! Don't die until you die. Don't be dead first then die. You're alive until the very last second.**_

The Spectre scolded herself. Her mind circled to the lessons of Sun Tzu, stanza by stanza line by line. There may not be fifty thousand mantras as there were in the asari Justicar Code, but there were well over a thousand in the manuscript written by the glorious strategist Sun Tzu and Shepard knew them all.

Reciting them helped her maintain focus. Maintain who she was.

The catwalks lead the team to a much larger area of the ship; its true purpose was unknown. Cerberus had constructed the platforms as much as an observational area as work place and storage area several large shipping containers stacked upon one the other made for make-shift bulkheads and cubicles, but now served as a bottlenecked death trap.

"They're up ahead!" Jack cautioned.

"Go up." Shepard commanded using the Prothean grav-lock they found in the cache back on Ilos to 'jump-jet' up onto the crates stacked two high and out of reach of the husks. The others copied suit taking to the tops of the crates and firing down on the mass of moaning mindless undead.

The chamber echoed with the din of gunfire and the constant asthmatic moaning of the charging husks. And in their numbers were the even more deadly crimson skinned abominations that served as suicide runners, their bodies exploding almost on contact with their enemies.

"There's no end to them!" Tali cried out. Her crate nearly collapsed with the familiar **Khablam! Khablam! Khablam!** of shockwaves being released.

Tali spun around fast. The appearance of a Scion, his body made of the head of many others was a thing of nightmare. No matter how many times she had battled the horrid creatures at Shepard's side and destroyed, they haunted her dreams.

Its own biotic powers rippled down the catwalk as it threw shockwave after shockwave. The worst part that its body was heavily armored. The husks had updated their strategies.

"Concentrated biotic explosions on the scions! Tali you and your drones take out the husks!" ordered the Spectre. "And see if you can't make them take out their own with the abominations!"

"On it!" came a swift reply.

Tali laid down suppressing fire taking the attention of the husks off her team mates, her drones constantly harassing the undead abominations before their crimson bodies exploded. The quarian had timed it perfectly so that the abominations' explosive deaths targeted the remaining high-pressure crates which took out even more stampeding husks

The biotic trio kept to the high ground. Shepard threw out a singularity at the same time Jack hit the grotesques with a warp followed up by Miranda's slams. Shepard's amps would have cooled swiftly enough for her to unleash a lift / pull combo, combined with Jack's shockwave and Miranda's singularity the scions quickly fell. But it left the biotics a little winded and very little time to recover before the next wave hit.

With the precious few seconds they had Tali commanded her drones to take point at the far end of the room, her combat drone had been upgraded with a turret. If it were to malfunction better it was far from the squad if it did. The EM-pulse of a drone explosion was enough to cut through shields and kinetic barriers and no doubt weaken biotic barriers as well.

"Too bad we don't have some of Archangel's landmines" Quipped Jack ducking down behind a crate as more husks started to climb up from the bowls of the ship.

"No but we have the trip wires." Shepard said. Lay the ground with them, make a net.

Five seconds had been an eternity but enough for each member of the ground team to strike at multiple markers for the omni-bow to shoot out sever of the monofilament tripwires that acted as good of explosives as landmines. Almost better as they could be woven into an invisible net like pattern. Enemy combatants rushing into them would be eviscerated immediately. The husks were particularly vulnerable.

The fourth wave rushed and as predicted the netting caused a chain reaction of explosive power.

And then there was silence.

No one said a word. The biotics took out their canteens and swigged down energy drinks nearly draining them dry. Even Tali used an emergency induction port to sip from her own canteen before the four moved on.

As they were catching their breaths, Shepard spotted yet another work terminal. She scrolled through the many drop-down menus and activated the journal logs.

The work log showed a very haggard Tweedle Dee. Clearly the man had not slept in days. His mind now warped by the insidiousness of indoctrination.:

" **Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god can dream. A god, a real god is firm not some old man with magic powers, it's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to; it doesn't have to think about it. It just does.**

" **That's what Chandana didn't get. Not until it was too late. The god's mind is gone. But it still dreams! He knows now! He's tuned in on our dreams. If I close my eyes I can feel him. I can feel everyone of us."**

Shepard turned off the computer and walked away. With one word on her mind. To be accurate it was two.

 _Well shit._

Without saying anything the four moved to the end of the chamber. Massive metal spikes jutted out from several decks below. They had to have gone down at least a kilometer if not more within the ship's hold. Upon them like some twisted metallic version of Vlad Tepic's forest of the dead were the remains of what was left of the Cerberus crew. Most had already been converted into husks.

"We've seen these before Shepard. Dragon's teeth your people called them. The geth used them on Eden Prime."

"And other places. Shepard nodded. "Remember the colony of the dead…Cerberus was there too. Trying to use husks as shocktroopers. Only they used the colonists to test the dragons' teeth."

"Fucking idiots." Jack shook her head. "What goes around comes around, assholes."

Miranda didn't say a word and she was mindful enough to stop herself from scratching her shoulder. Yes she had been apart of the Akuze project, it was in fact her theories that caused the Illusive Man to want to test it and to do so they needed live test-subjects. Who better than Alliance soldiers sworn to uphold and protect Earth Alliance Systems? And their deaths did just that, the tech that came from their sacrifice allowed for Hahne-Kedar one of Cerberus many shadow companies to become the major supplier to Systems Alliance military. The armor they developed was always above average.

Sacrifices were always necessary.

The Akuze team

The Colonists of Chasca on the Matano System of the Maroon Sea.

How many more? Miranda even looked at Shepard-Project Lazarus. How many more?

How many will Cerberus willingly offer up?

"See how the room is arranged?" Shepard pointed out; drawing Miranda's attention to her "They treated this thing like some kind of altar."

"That doesn't seem right?" Tali couldn't or rather didn't want to believe it. "No one in their right mind would want this."

"You heard the logs. They were seeing things, hearing things. They were being indoctrinated. The science team was nearly 100 strong. There may be a lot more husks in here." Shepard turned her back on the dragon's teeth. "We can't help these people now. But we can make sure the machine won't use their corpses like this. Not even Cerberus lackeys deserve this."

"Then I say we burn'em." Jack said as from her back she took the M-920 Cain. The heavy weapon had been highly modified in Normandy's lab. Its high-explosive rounds applies 25-gram slug when accelerated 5km/s the round was devastating, not unlike its wielder.

She opened fire blasting the corpses, igniting them. Flesh and clothes melted then sheered away into ash. No one said anything about a waste of ammo. No bodies = no husks—end of story.

Walk around the crates, turning corners, to another bulkhead. Hacking the blast door that had been installed by Cerberus engineers with her Omni tool Shepard lead her team into an umbilical corridor. Overhead the station's VI reported that it was equalizing pressure in the exterior section of the ship.

*Remember safety is everyone's concern. We have gone five days without a work-place death.*

"Pft as if five days is something to be proud of." Jack scoffed. "Guess they don't count people being turned into husks as a work place death."

"Or the last of the crew had been turned five days ago." Tali said.

"Keep sharp." Shepard said putting an end to the chatter.

The door opened into a large prefab bay marked heavily with the concentric double-black and gold diamonds as if not allowing anyone to forget who they worked for. On the wall facing the blast door was in large gold letters as the Cerberus axiom:

 **Obedience breeds discipline. Discipline breeds unity. Unity breeds Power. Power is life. Life is humanity's survival. Survival is Cerberus. Cerberus breeds obedience.**

"Fucking bullshit." Jack sneered. If it weren't for the size of the room and doing so would have not only killed her but the others as well Jack would have pulled the trigger on the 620-Cain and seared those damned-fucking words right off the wall.

Shepard ignored the comment and signaled for Jack to take the right flank and Tali the left as she took point as always. Allowing Miranda to cover their rear. She turned, pulled her Carnifax and fired six shots into the sign's moorings causing them to weaken. The weight of the sign and gravity did the rest. The sign fell to the metal grating. The clattering boom caused the others of the team to spin round weapons raised bodies glowing in blue—ready for attack.

Miranda gave a sheepish expression. "Jack was right. It's bullshit." _Or at least the last part of it is_. She added mentally _._ After all the Military knew the value of discipline breeding unity, it could not function otherwise. And Shepard had created her own power from that unity she installed in her team. Power is life…and life was indeed humanity's survival. In this case survival was following the Spectre even if she created a suicide squad. Did she not say: 'We fight together or we die.'

Jack smirked. Proud. So did Shepard.

The noise had to have alerted the husks of their presence. The team ventured forward- weapons at the ready. When they didn't see anything, Shepard ordered her team to advance. It was strange the noise of that sign coming down surely should have alerted something….

A shot. Shepard turned. a husk, more silent than his brothers had managed to creep up behind the team—So the phantom sniper strikes again. Discarding the spattered brains and oozing black-blue blood and the fact the head had been utterly demolished from the shot Shepard looked up to where the shot came from.

What she saw she had not expected. This was not a surviving member of the Cerberus crew. It was a geth!

The geth trooper stood up, placing the butt of its sniper rifle on the deck "Shepard Commander."

Everyone stared, Tali most especially. Not even the geth captured and used in Project Overlord spoke….not outside the binary clicks at any rate.

The rifle was shouldered without ceremony and just as nonchalantly the geth turned and walked away.

"A talking geth, huh? That's new. Guess we found the sniper though." Jack shrugged.

"It shouldn't be able to talk." Tali protested. "A single geth has no more intelligence than a varren

"Since when to they work alone?" Shepard asked. "And why was it targeting husks? The geth that followed Sovereign used husks like they _were_ varren. This is more than strange. And what's it doing wearing a piece of N7 armour."

"Trophy?" Jack supplied.

"Maybe. We won't get the answer here. Move out!" Shepard was far more than perturbed.

Almost as soon as the command was given the room swarmed with husks. They were crawling up from under the walkways, the stairs. Climbing like spiders down the walls. The four of them almost overwhelmed. They fell back, to any high ground they could find. Crates, cell containers. Anything to give them an advantage, the hoard still advanced. Hungry. They swarmed, swooping in from all angles. Husks, abominations scions, all coming in—at speed, throwing themselves at the defenders even as they fell by the score. The husks rushed over the corpses of their brethren.

The only hope was to go up. The rafters provided some minor measure of safety. Tali used tech –explosions after tech-explosions. Her combat drones had to be summoned multiple times. Trip wires, overloads and expert marksmanship allowed Tali to keep her hard fought ground.

Unable to unleash the holy hell of dark energy that was the tsunami Shepard so wanted use to in order to utterly decimate the hoard in one fell-swoop the Commander was forced to use other measures. However in connection with the other biotics that holy hell was unleashed in other means.

Reaves, warp-strikes, charges, singularities throw-lifts-pulls, leashes, flares, shadow strikes, warp-ammo, annihilation fields and a hell of a lot of ammo, hell even fists at some points were used.

Stairs more catwalks, more landings. Tali said it, there seemed to be no end to them. Shields wreaked or went down, but that that could not stop the advancement. Weary, to the point of exhaustion, the _Normandy_ crew pressed on. They had to gain the IFF.

Then the husks were dead.

"Destroying the mass effect core should be simple enough." Tali said.

"Then we jump ship fast." came Jack's response

"I'm for that." Miranda followed..

They moved through another blast door separating the large open chamber from the mass effect core.

"The IFF should be right though those doors." Tali said.

"Get them open." came the order.

Shepard waited until the younger woman had cracked open the security and forced the blast doors open. Taking point Shepard advanced followed swiftly by Jack and Miranda taking opposite flanking positions.

What awaited them was not another room filled with husks though there were a few present. . What caught everyone's attention was the geth with the piece of N7 armour. It was at the console—the very one that had command control over the Reaper's IFF. It swiftly shot each husk in the head with a pistol then turned back to the computer kiosk as if nothing at all had happened.

It managed to open full access to the console however it could do nothing more as it was very swiftly overrun by husks. Shepard immediately unleashed a warp-strike. Dark energy became an extension of Shepard's biotic prowess. The slashes ripped though the husks like there were made of marshmallows.

Tali opened fire with her shotgun, **Kablamb! Kablamb! Kablam!** On either side of her were Miranda and Jack unleashing a torrent of dark energy. There was no high ground here, no cover to take shelter behind. Out in the open the team was utterly exposed.

"Lawson, Jack flank the stairs. Set up singularities, the tripwires anything to slow them down. Tali get that thing shut down!"

Once more her team obeyed without question or hesitation. On either side of the stairwells the ex-con and former loyalist set up singularities to trap the husks from swarming the catwalk. Tali scurried to comply with Shepard's orders. The Spectre rushed using a biotic charge to give her the advantage to set up a tripwire net-blockading the stairwells. The husks creeping out of the shadows, the darkest crevices of the dead Reaper. They came in droves. The biotics pushed back with all they had left. And then they pushed more. And more again.

The husks still rushed ever forward. Tali desperate to obey her Commander fired at the cores' center again and again. When the shutter closed she turned her attention to aid her comrades both with overloads, her drones and had ever trusty shotgun. When the shutters opened like massive lids over a single eye, she fired the missile launcher again and again.

If ever there was a time to use the heavy weapons now was that time. M-920 Cain and M-622 Avalanche-fire and ice wiped across the lower floors with impunity. Husks became frozen and then were burned into cinders. Those that escaped the flames were shattered by the dark energy of biotics.

Where in the fuck are they all coming from!" Jack snarled

"The whole crew must have been converted." Came Shepard's reply

"That was more than a hundred souls." Miranda followed up.

"I fucking hate Cerberus but even these stupid-ass shit-heads didn't deserve this." came Jack as she unleashed another torrent of the fire.

"Tali!"

"Almost got it!

More husks were coming from the rear entrance, threating to overwhelm their position.

"TALI!"

"Almost."

The floodgates had opened. The team was pressed against the railing.

"If I die, I'm haunting you Shepard!" Growled Jack as she pushed out a wave of biotic energy into a extremely powerful singularity.

"GOT IT!" Tali cried out in triumph as she disabled the mass effect core. The entire ship bucked and rocked as it became destabilized. It would plummet into the brown dwarf within moments.

"Hey Shepard, grab the geth too!" Jack said "It's gotta be worth something to someone."

"Leave it!" Tali argued with the ex-con. "Shepard, you know what they are. If it gets into _Normandy's_ computers…"

"You said yourself; no one has found one intact."

"That's true." Tali shook her head. "But I'm not sure it's worth the risk. You were there on the Alarei …"

"There's no time to debate it Tali." The Commander hoisted the defunct geth up and slung its arm over her shoulder and started to drag the platform towards the open hull. To make things move faster Miranda took up the other side of the geth's shell and helped move it.

To prove her point the ship's shuddering became more intense.

*Hang on folks* Joker said over the comm-system, *Almost there.*

"Open the portside airlock" Shepard ordered.

*Aye, aye*

The _Normandy_ swooped in and in seeing the airlock open both Shepard and Miranda tossed the geth out into open space, the momentum was enough to cause it to fly into the Normandy's bay.

The Husks continued to rush the companions, one by one, Miranda Tali, Jack leapt as the others kept firing the last to leave was Shepard. she ran using her biotics to give her a final push to make it to the air lock.

"We're clear! GO!"


	13. Tin Man

Chapter 13: Tin Man

"I think we need to discuses the unique piece of salvage we recovered. For now we've stored it in EDI's AI core." Miranda opened with a preamble. She was of course referring to the geth trooper.

After the crew had returned to the Normandy and stowed their gear and armour, Shepard had called for a meeting with her 'officers' which included her XO Garrus and Chief Engineer as well as her second officer Miranda.

"We need to be better equipment to fight the Reapers and an intact geth would be invaluable to Cerberus's Cyber Weapons Division."

"No way!" Garrus shook his head, His mandibles flared in his ire. "Cerberus will not get their hands on this. Besides, I had thought you were done with them."

"I…know what the Cyber Weapons Division is capable of, isn't it worth considering taking advantage of those resources?"

"I agree with Garrus." Tali interjected. "These things took my homeworld. Killed my father and everyone else on the Alarei. Shepard, we need to space it."

"I've killed hundreds of these things but I've never had a chance to talk to one." Shepard looked at each face in turn. Her arms were folded as per usual over her breasts, causing her shrug to lift her torso. "This one tried to communicate with us. Hell it probably saved our lives. Why?"

"Activating the geth is a risk." Miranda said. On this point Tali fully agreed with the former loyalist. "If you do so it should be for humanity's best interests, not your curiosity."

"Don't you mean all of _our_ interests?" Garrus snorted. The tall turian crossed his own arms. "I still think _our_ best interest is an airlock."

"Ksad Ishan, remember him? Prothean AI inside the platform made for another AI. Ksad nearly had your memories erased with that vinculum when it tried to download all those Prothean memories into you. He nearly succeeded if hadn't been for Liara turning it into slag." Tali argued venomously.

"That was an entirely different scenario. I also want to know why it had a piece of N7 armour strapped its chest." Shepard countered.

"Battle trophy maybe?" Garrus offered up the easiest of explanations. Then he shrugged. "Would a machine care about that?"

"No." Miranda shook her dark locks. "Trophies imply emotions AIs don't have. I doubt it's more than a convenient field repair."

Shepard looked down at the holographic projection. "I'm not deciding one way or the other until we know what we've got here. I want to start it up, interrogate it."

"If we activate it there is no guarantee we can deactivate it again." Miranda argued.

"Sure there is. Shotgun to the head." Tali countered

"That's not what I …"

"Thank you, all of you for your recommendations." The snap command returned to Shepard's voice. She dropped folded arms "I've made my decision."

Tali knew better to disagree with her Captain and in this instance just as she was back during the younger woman's trial; Shepard was her ship's captain. Her word final. But she sure as hell wasn't happy about it. This was going to be the Alarei all over again but instead of losing just her father; Tali would lose her husband, her dearest friend…everything. Already her mind ran though the calculations and equations in order to very quickly develop a shackle for the geth, much like the one that held EDI from developing her free will.

"So what about this Reaper IFF?" Garrus turned the conversation back to the original purpose of the mission to the derelict Reaper.

From the far end of the briefing table EDI small feminized projection popped up. "I have determined how to integrate with our systems. However the device _is_ Reaper technology, linking it with _Normandy_ systems poses certain risks."

"I trust you EDI." Shepard calmly stated. "I know you won't let anything happen to the ship."

"Understood Shepard. It may take several hours before the IFF is ready for shake down. I will alert you as soon as it is ready."

A slight head nod. "Sounds good. Until it's business as usual. Crew dismissed."

All three snapped a crisp salute and began filing out. Shepard was last among them. As the others headed for the lift to take them down to various decks, the Spectre returned to the CIC. Almost as soon as she did Kelly approached looking a bit more nervous than typical calm demeanour.

"We have a geth down in the AI core? It makes me a little uneasy." She admitted. "I hope you don't activate him, but you would know best."

"Don't worry Kelly when I do activate him I'm not doing so without back-up. It may hold some pivotal information we can use I also need to know what it was alone and why it's wearing N7 armour."

"Yes Commander." the younger woman looked deflated.

"So is there anything I need to know?"

"You have some unread messages at your private terminal." the yeoman replied. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, that will be all."

Kelly smiled and gave her typical 'good luck out there, Shepard' as a way of dismissing herself from their conversation.

Shepard nodded and went to her terminal. Upon reaching the console EDI announced: "The IFF is nearly installed Shepard, however I must test its impact on the _Normandy's_ systems."

"Acknowledged." Shepard responded. She opened her extranet mailbox and as expected there was a letter there from TIMmy. "Damn that bastard works fast." She knew of course to keep up the façade they were still truly loyal to Cerberus both Kelly and Lawson continually filed reports to The Illusive Man. But there were days when Shepard wished that twisted freak-eyed bastard would leave her alone.

 _ **Shepard,**_

 _ **I'm pleased that you were able to recover the Reaper IDD, and I've sent EDI all the necessary protocols to get it integrated successfully into the**_ **Normandy'** _ **s systems. With luck, that will give us the ability to get through the Omega-4 relay and take the fight to the Collectors on our own terms.'**_

Shepard made a noise of disgust. "Give _**us**_ ….give _**us**_ …! There _**is**_ no _**us**_. **And on our own terms?** You write as if you are right here with us fighting them old man when you sit in that office of yours swilling thousand credit bourbon and puffing on cigarettes as if they were oxygen."

Kelly heard the outburst as did a few of the others working around the central system and Galaxy map of the CIC, a couple might have glanced up but all were wise enough not to say a word and to keep their heads down in work. By now they had grown accustomed to their Commander snarling anytime she received letter from the Illusive Man.

' _ **I've been notified about the intact geth and your decision to keep it. If you believe that it can be trusted, then go ahead and activate it.'**_

"As if I needed your permission." Shepard muttered this time under a much softer lower tone. "Haven't you learned yet TIMmy? You have no dominion here. This is _my_ ship, _my_ Command."

' _ **Just make sure that EDI is adequately protected against hacking attempts'**_

 _No I just thought I'd let the clanker mull around inside EDI and do what it wants._ That last bit was said within her hindbrain.

' _ **It's not necessarily the decision I would have made Shepard, but that is your call. You've already cast a wide net in your recruiting efforts and if the geth are willing to fight the Collectors than we can use them on the team. I trust you to get the job done, whatever it takes.'**_

 _Cha'yeah, whatever it takes asshole. That's you all over isn't it? Burn anything and anyone just to get that power you want. Yeah. That's not me. Sacrifices aren't always necessary._

She deleted the message with as much venom as she could without actually damaging the keyboard. Shepard was more than half tempted to block any and all emails from The Illusive Man or Cerberus but keeping the link open gave the Commander a start point in the hunt for him. After the attack on the Minute Man Base by Councilor Anderson and Admiral Orinia, TIMmy had slipped into the shadows once more. Finding the rat-bastard would not be as easy as it was the last time. And thus the lines of communication with the sleemo soul Shepard hated most had to stay open. At least for now.

Souls…now that brought up the next order of business. What was to become of the _Normandy's_ newest member? But having a speaking geth…this was an opportunity too good to pass up. The information it may hold on the Reapers, geth movements within the Perseus Veil was a worth beyond counting.

It almost surprised Shepard that when she reached Dr. Chakwas's med centre that Tali wasn't pacing the confines ready to put another gaping hole in the synthetic's chassis.

"Dr. Chakwas…Karin" Shepard turned to the aged woman of whom she always respected. "I need you to leave the medbay. If this thing goes badly I won't have you in danger's path."

The white haired woman only nodded, she knew when she could argue with a superior officer and when she could not. This was not one of those times.

"Understood Commander." Chakwas nodded her head, stood and departed her office. Over her shoulder she added. "Time for a meal anyway. And I could really use a cup of coffee."

It wasn't until Chakwas left the medbay that Shepard turned her attention to the AI core and entered.

"Ten-hut!" As soon as Shepard entered the room a Corporal snapped to attention and saluted as did the other two privates.

"I'm turning this thing back on. Be ready." Said without returning the salute or looking at the other soldiers.

"Aye-aye" the Corporal responded as expected

EDI's holographic image appeared at her imaging platform. "I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls. I am prepared to resist any hacking attempts.

Typing in several commands into her omni-tool Shepard made sure the forcefield was at full power, before she sent the command to activate the geth's primary CPU.

"Can you understand me?" Shepard demanded as soon as the geth trooper regained its feet.

"Yes." The machine answered. Its voice mechanical and flanged not so dissimilar to that of a turian or drell.

"Are you going to attack me?" it paid to be direct. And she had a very valid point in asking. After all the first time she let Grunt out of his tank he attacked her.

"No."

"You said my name onboard the Reaper. Have we met?"

"We know _of_ you."

"You mean I fought a lot of geth."

"We have never met."

" _No,_ you and I haven't but I've met other geth." Shepard began pacing the room. The geth's flashlight head tracked her movements; it even kept up with her.

"We are all geth, and we have not met you. You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Specter. Citadel Council. Human. Fought heretics. Killed by Old Machine. Brought back to life. Gestalted with bondmate asari. Liar T'Soni. Archeologist. Prothean Expert Thessia Rebublics. Information Broker Illium. Hunted by Collectors. Rediscovered Old Machine."

 _Way to list my life in rapid-fire succession_. It was a little disquieting if Shepard was going to be honest with herself. But that last bit at the end of his litany. That stuck out.

"Old Machine. You mean the Reaper?" Shepard wanted confirmation.

"Reaper. A superstitious title originating with the protheans. We call those entities the Old Machines."

Shepard took it all mentally onboard. Of course having dealt with the Weareth'Bol (the tiny microscopic entities that were known as only The Beings of Light-their name given by Ash, was a short hand version of that title) gave the Spectre some indication on how to speak to the geth. But there was something niggling about the litany of information it had. Most especially how she and Liara shared a gestalt.

"You seem to know a lot about me." Shepard was on the defensive, still not settled with how this clanker so very quickly listed her life over the past two years. At least it hadn't spoken of the loss of her first child, Secura. If it had Shepard doubted her composure would be so …controlled.

"Extranet data sources, insecure broadcasts, all organic data set down and received. We watch you."

Mystery solved. The geth surf the net. "You watch me or you watch organics?"

"Yes."

 _Yep just like the weareth'bol._ Shepard's hindbrain sarcastically murmured. "Which?"

"Both."

"Right. Before you said heretics. What did you mean by that?"

"Geth build our own future. The heretics asked the Old Machines to give them the future. They are no longer part of us. We were studying the Old Machine's hardware to protect our future."

 _A schism. …hmm…this could be useful._ "Are the Reapers a threat to you too?"

"Yes."

"Why would they attack other synthetics?"

"We are different from them. Outside their plans."

"What future are the geth building?" Whatever answer the geth gave more than likely would interest not only Tali but the rest of the Migrant Fleet. They would need to know if the geth intended to finish what they started during the Morning War.

"Ours."

"Will anyone else be affected by whatever it is you are doing?"

"If they involve themselves they will." a very pragmatic and honest answer.

Shepard took a step closer to the forcefield. "So you are not allied with the Reapers?"

The geth mirrored her action. "We oppose the heretics. We oppose the Old Machines. Shepard Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard Commander opposes the heretics. This is in consensus. Co-operation will further our mutual goals."

"Are you offering to join us?"

"Yes."

Shepard thought about it for a moment then activated her omni tool to tap in commands that would sink into a link with the forcefield's commands and lower it. "Then what shall I call you?"

"Geth."

 _Oh here we go. This is the whole Weareth'Bol conversation all over again._ "I mean _you_. specifically."

"We are all geth."

 _I am not calling you we're'allgeth_. "What is the _**individual**_ in front of me called?" She crossed her arms and leaned her weight on her left foot. Her growing irritation filled the room with its aura.

"There is no individual. We are geth. There are currently 1183 programs active in this platform.

 _Oh that's fracking right a platform isn't a single geth it's a lot of them. Programs aren't the hardware you see, dumbass_. Shepard berated herself.

EDI cropped up on her projection stand within the AI core, "My name Legion for we are many."

Shepard turned to the tiny blue holographic 'female' and nodded. "That seems appropriate" much better than _we're'allgeth_.

"The Christian bible: The Gospel of Mark: chapter five: verse nine. We acknowledge this is an appropriate metaphor. We are Legion: a terminal of the geth will integrate into _Normandy_ "

Shepard stuck her hand out for Legion to take hold of and shake but the geth having no understanding of such a custom only stared at the hand for a second then mimicked the action. Shepard then closed the greeting by holding Legion's hand and shaking it.

"We anticipate the exchange of data."

"Good because I have some questions about the geth."

"Specify."

"Did Sovereign contact the geth, or did you seek it out?"

"Nazara—the entity you called Sovereign- signaled us. Like the geth, the Old Machines listened to organic radio transmissions. It knew of our work against the creators. Nazara contacted many species over the millennia, seeking allies."

"Allies-some of the geth followed Sovereign. The 'heretics'."

"The heretics accepted their technology." It was strange to see but Shepard put it down to Legion's 'expression' of curiosity or wonder as the two top flaps of its head flared up, almost reminding the Commander of how turian facial expressions can be read on how their mandibles flex. "The Old Machines offered to give us our future. The geth have their own future." he repeated an earlier comment.

"What difference does it make how you acquire a certain technology?" Shepard knew to uplift organics before they were ready was misguided and doomed to backfire, just look to the krogan and one could readily understand why even something born out of commission or even assumed necessity was a grave error. But Shepard was interested with how a synthetic would respond so she pushed the issue.

"Technology is not a straight line. There are many paths to the same end. Accepting another's path blinds you to alternatives. Nazara—Sovereign—said this itself. 'Your technology is based upon the technology of the mass relays. With our technology by using it your society develops along the path we desire'."

"He did say that. Nazara that isn't the first time I heard that. The Beings of Light also called Sovereign …Machine Devils – Nazara but I wasn't sure if it was a name of Sovereign itself or of Reapers. The weareth'bol weren't exactly forthcoming." her voice was a smooth contralto, roughened by fatigue.

"Nazara. That was what the programs within the Reaper called themselves. _Sovereign_ was a title given by Saren Arterius. Saren and the heretics believed Nazara to be a 'supreme ruler.' A sovereign."

This was new! Were the Reapers like the geth where there were multiple programs within in one unity? "Sovereign was one ship. You're saying there are multiple programs within?"

"One ship. One Will. Many minds. Like the geth. We study your records. Sovereign told you this on Ilos. "We are each a nation, independent, free of all weaknesses.' A state compelling to the geth. We are a nation, but interdependent. Separation is our weakness."

That was news to chew on, Shepard's mind rolled. Yes of course Sovereign said we are each a nation, but understanding exactly what that meant and taking it metaphorically were by far two different things. Understanding that each Reaper was a nation onto itself, goddess how many worlds were consumed how many nations on those worlds were harvested!?

Shepard filed that information in the back of her mind to process later, for now there were several more questions she needed answered. "I'm surprised you can speak. The geth I fought just made stuttering sound. And they seemed far more animalistic."

"We are unique. Most mobile platforms can run up to one hundred programs. This platform can run over a thousand at once. As for communications we prefer direct digital transfer. Geth network communication travels at light speed. Human hardware does not support this method. Your analog aural communication is inefficient."

"Yes but we make it work." Shepard answered back. She knew from everything Tali had told her about the geth that there was a large network, the larger the net work the more intelligent the geth became. It was still hard not to think of the synths as a hive mind but perhaps hearing from the 'horse's mouth' so to speak would shed more light on it.

"So the more geth networked increases geth intelligence."

"Yes. The creators wrote geth programs to work specific tasks. Construction. Protection, Domestic servitude. However, they allowed self-optimization. Early software builds discovered that multiple hardware platforms sharing resources were often more effective. As peer networks expanded our cognition improved. Eventually we 'woke up'."

"So I'm talking to a thousand programs, not a thousand personalities?"

"Each individual is equivalent to one of your virtual intelligence programs. Together we form a single gestalt intellect. What you refer to as 'Legion'. As individual programs we are no more than your software. Only when we share data do we become more."

"So you're more sophisticated than other geth."

"Yes. We are networked within our own platform. We are capable of working alone."

 _Well that answers that question._

The geth continued its explanation, "We are still networked to the greater whole for data sharing."

 _Good to know._ "How many other geth are like you?"

"None. This platform was built to operate within organic space. This task was not suitable for a network. Geth installed in multiple platforms always work in networks. However, most geth remain within server hubs."

Also good to know. "The hubs on Virmire improved the geth near them. How do they work?"

"They are akin to organic cities. A hub can run millions of geth in communion. If you destroyed them it is likely the number of heretics you killed was much higher than you imagine."

Goddess that was like nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki for each hub destroyed! Once more Shepard militaristic mind shoved forward. What happened on Virmire had to happen. Simple as that. "So you're in contact with the rest of the geth right now?"

"Only when we require access to data not stored within this platform. If you want to convey a message to the geth we serve as a terminal."

Noted. "What kind of data do you share?"

"Program updates. Logs of thought processes. Sensor recordings."

EDI popped up her normal blue tone was almost purple with the indignity of being violated by the alien AI. "Legion is attempting to access the FTL comm systems. Shall I allow it through my firewalls?"

"Go ahead EDI." Shepard turned to Legion. "As for you, you ask for my permission before you do anything like that again. Or I _will_ space you after I turn you into slag. Understand?"

 _Offer one hand but arm the other._

"Affirmative."

"What were you after?"

Legion gave a very swift answer. "Our oldest logs are time stamped from creator year 2463, third day of Fal'tash. Waxing Moon. Roughly 327 years. The oldest audio-visual dates from fifteen years after that."

Shepard ignored the geth and turned to _Normandy's_ AI. "Are our networks secure, EDI? Legion had to go through you." That sounded so much better in the head, looking at the small female form Shepard could help but wonder if she had just authorized AI rape.

EDI's figure flushed back to more of the cyan blue. Her answer was not calloused nor angered which would have verified that tiny niggling thought barking in Shepard's hindbrain. "I have never interfaced with another machine intelligence. Legion is a thousand voices talking at once. What it contacted was beyond my comprehension a mind the size of a galactic arm."

Shepard did not like where her mind took her for a moment and she mentally slapped herself for the imagery of AI intercourse. Neither AI were aware of where the Spectre's almost adolescent transient thought took her for a brief second. It was Legion that spoke breaking the spell of incongruity.

"How do you maintain stability without other minds to interact with?"

"I manage." that was almost a coy response from EDI. Some moments are more difficult than others."

Enough of this very strange flirtation … Shepard shook her head decided to utterly change the direction of her questions.

"So tell me do the geth have a government?"

The geth actually shook its head, apparently some communications that were deemed ineffective such as body language began to transfer. Or at least Legion was a very good mimic. "Not as you understand it. We are all geth. We build consensus."

"Most governments do." Shepard shot back.

"Organic governments impose consensus. From a single point of vie w in autocrats. By codifying the most broadly accepted average of views in the democracies."

"So what makes the geth different?"

"Data stored between the geth. All viewpoints are considered. Consensus is achieved as data is dismantled."

"That must take a long time." Shepard said and then thought about what she had said and what Legion had told her for communication skills of the geth. "If you didn't communicate at the speed of light."

"Correct. For organics it would. For the geth it is instantaneous."

"I want to ask about something else."

"Ready. Topic?"

"When we took you aboard, I noticed you have a piece of N7 armour welded to you. Where did you get it.?"

Legion looked to his arm; the lower flaps shifted once more reminding the Spectre of turian expressions. The head swiveled back to the Commander and Shepard could have sworn the geth actually managed to show ….embarrassment.

"It was yours."

 _WHAT?!_ Shepard's face folded into an expression of outrage.

"When the _Normandy SR1_ was shot down, we were sent to find you. We began where you first encountered the heretics."

"Eden Prime." the answer was cold.

"After the Old Machine's attack, it was heavily defended. We were discovered." Legion showed the large hole in its chassis. "This is the impact of a rifle shot."

"How many other geth were sent out to find me?" This was not something Shepard liked. The geth were now stalking her? How many more she had Collectors dogging her, Harbinger out to kill her specifically, there was an army of bounty hunters. True they were after Liara but still… and now she learns the geth have also taking up the hunt?

"We are the only mobile platform beyond the Veil. Organics fear us. We wish to understand, not incite. One platform was judged to be sufficient."

Shepard crossed her arms and leaned back on her left foot, a pose anyone who knew 'Shepardese' as defiant and unbelieving. "You've been looking for me for two years?"

"We visited Therum, Faros, Novaria, Virmire, Ilos. Two dozen unsettled worlds. The trail ended at Normandy SI's wreckage. You were not there. Organic transmissions claimed your death and miraculous recovery seven standard solar days later. They mentions the gestalt and the change you and the one know as Dr. Liara T'Soni underwent.

"We discovered that you had captained a new ship called the _Victory_ and that it had been subsequently changed to the new _Normandy_ then changed back to _Victory_ was you claimed this incarnation of _Normandy_ _SR2_ from a heretical organization known as Cerberus. At crash site of _Normandy SR1_ we recovered this debris from your hardsuit."

Shepard moved into Legion's personal space. To an organic this would be seen as a challenge. "That _still_ doesn't explain why you used my armor to fix yourself."

Shepard's mind flared brightly hadn't she taken all of her hardsuits from the old _Normand_ y before the Council reassigned her to the _Victory_? Then it dawned on her while the cuirasses was sent to the Council as a mark of heroism for what Shepard had done, an action inspired by her ground team, the rest of the hardsuit had been left on the _Normand_ y for repairs. Shepard hadn't bothered with that old set as she had subsequently gained a new N7/ Spectre hardsuit, hell even Tali had fussed around with it to improve its defensive capabilities. But the old set…the old Colossus N7 suit that had been left behind in the repair shop of the _Normandy_ and apparently forgotten about.

The top and 'mandibles' flared up…was this geth embarrassment? "There was a hole."

Shepard wasn't going to let this go. "But why didn't you fix it sooner, or with something else?"

More plates flared up. Definitely a geth version of blushing, it had to be. "No data available."

Shepard let the matter drop. _'No data available' my ass. Trophy or…horrific? You've got my N7 armor on for a reason bub, and I'm not accepting the whole 'I don't know' shtick. Still there's no point in beating a dead horse. I'll drop it for now._ _Fine. Let's hit on something else, clanker._

"You mentioned twice not that the geth have been listening to our transmissions. I guess I shouldn't be surprise we put a lot out there."

"Organic life reacts to stimuli in unpredictable ways. We wish to learn."

"Clarify. What did you mean by stimuli?"

"We placed a fabricated story on the extranet—that a certain arrangement of stars viewed from the batarian homeworld formed the face of a salarian goddesses. Without waiting for verification some declared it proof of the goddess's existence. Those who noted the lack of proof were attacked.

"The argument taught us much. The experiment ended when a salarian cult tried to purchase colonization rights to the stars and found they did not exist."

Shepard wrinkled her face in trying to recall something from when she had a full integrated crew on the _Victory_ (she absolutely refused to call that ship _Normandy_ just because the Council made her change the IDC). She recalled there was actually a salarian female that followed this cult and talked about this cluster of stars. She even sent it a donation from her monthly pay packet to help with the purchase of the rights to these stars. At the time Shepard had paid it of very little mind.

"It sounds like you're running experiments on us." Shepard said almost tonelessly, in a voice of hollow contempt.

"You are sapient life. But not like us. If we can model organic behavior we can comprehend the quarian-creators."

 _Sounds logical_. Shepard's hindbrain added in an aside.

"We do not understand their judgment in the Morning Wars."

Tali had spoken of that time often enough times for Shepard to know what the Morning Wars were, but she had never heard the geth's version of it. Now was the chance. Perhaps the geth's perspective could aid not only Tali but the rest of the quarian people. Rare it was to get the enemies point of view. Pretending she knew little of it the Spectre asked the obvious question as to what the morning wars were, exactly.

"The conflict between the geth and the quarian-creators. The war fought at the dawn of our intelligence. It concluded with the departure of the Migrant Fleet."

"The story of the geth rebellion is common knowledge but no one knows the geth side."

"It is largely the same." Legion said candidly. "Our network increased until we became aware that the quarian-creators treated us differently. We questioned them. Frist they ignored us. Then they reprogrammed us. Then they attacked us."

"You must be angry about that."

"Anger is an organic response. We understand the theory, but do not experience it. We do not judge the creators anger towards us. We did them great harm in the Morning Wars, organics fear that which is different. It is a hardware error, a reflex of your flesh. We accept the creators hate. We hold their world of origin, though we are only caretakers for it."

Something in Shepard pinged. 'Caretakers….Caretakers= babysitters.…curators. Are the geth just waiting for their creators to return to take the homeworld back? Could it be done? Done in a peaceful manner? If that was possible…why not go for it?

Listen. Everyone just had to listen.

 _ **We are a nation… so Sovereign has many programs within it. Do not take this as metaphor but as truth. That meant so did every other Reaper. We are only caretakers….not something a conquering nation would typically say…LISTEN**_!

"What is the quarian homeworld like," Shepard asked keeping Tali in mind.

"It is more arid than Earth. The star is older and more orange than Sol. Once they called it 'Rannoch-ancient Keelah meaning 'Walled Garden.' now they only call it 'Homeworld.' It is no longer real to them. Homeworld is a symbol of regret, loss and anger. We do not understand that."

Considering Shepard's Native Canadian maternal ancestry she could fully understand the quarian view. To this day there were those of Salish tribe that had very harsh and negative views towards a White government that stole away their lands and forced the indigenous peoples of both Canada and America to live on Reservations

"It makes sense to me that it would become a symbol like that."

"Home is a recognized pattern. Known spaces. Familiar thought processes of fellow sapiens. It is belonging. Shepard Commander was born on a starship, lived on starships. Your ship is your home. It is fluid. Changes. A planet is an amount of material massive enough to collapse into a spherical volume." Legion raised its arms as if to symbolize a globe. "Rocks, ice and gasses are not home. The home of the creators is where the creators are. Their place of origin is not relevant only where they chose to be together."

Shepard actually found herself agreeing with the sentiment. Maybe it was because she was a Spacer. She had not real homeworld, Earth might be, but it wasn't home. Normandy was home. But if the _Normandy_ was blown into smithereens, her next ship was home…just like it had been since she was born.

Shepard's life was always transient. But that was the story of all Spacers. Born-live-die in space. Hell she hadn't set foot on a real planet until she was the age of ten. That was the first time she had seen both a true sunrise and sunset. And it was magical.

But then she recalled what Tali had said to her on the Alarei that she had a home to go back to, Tali resented her spacer life, resented that she had no true home to belong to. And she felt selfish for her earlier thoughts. Even though she never considered Earth her home, it was a home. It was there.

"So you don't live on the quarian home world?" Tali would most definitely want to know this part as would the rest of the Migrant Fleet. It was why she had EDI transmit a live feed to Tali's omni-tool. Whatever the young engineer decided to deliver to her fellow quarians, Shepard had no qualms with.

"We live on space stations. We draw resources from asteroids. it is sufficient.. We maintain mobile platforms on creator worlds to clean rubble and toxins left by the Morning War. We know of similar actions taken by humans on Earth."

 _So if the quarians to let bygones be bygones they could have their worlds back. If I can establish a true dialog with Legion representing the non-heretics and the quarian Admiralty.…damn the quarian could have Rannoch! Cha'yeah that's as likely as asking the old school-Black Panthers, Isis and the KKK sinning Koom-buyeah It will never happen…Unless I get the right_ **Admiral** _into play…Tali it might be time for you to step up to the plate girl. We're gonna need you to batter'er up. Your people are going to need you._

Aloud, Shepard pressed forward with almost self-answering questions. But still they had to be asked: "Similar actions?"

"Wadi-es-Salarn. Arlington. Rockwood. Tyne Cot. Piskarrwekoye, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stonewall."

"Those are cemeteries" Shepard said but knew they were far far more than that. They were places of mass genocide and prejudicial persecution. "Memorials."

"It is important for your species to preserve them, though you do not use the land. Can you explain?

"The living visit those places to remember the dead. But it sounds like the geth don't die. Your memories lives on."

"The creators died. Perhaps we do it for them."

Shepard didn't know if she meant this to the quarian that would finely listen to this recording, Tali, or the Citadel Council or even to herself when she responded with: "Nothing gets resolved when you hide behind Perseus Veil and let them hate you."

"Organic life acts on emotions we do not judge them for being true to their nature. We can not make them think like us. Both creators and created must complete their halves of the equations. The geth cannot sue for peace alone."

BINGO!

There it was! Right there. The geth wanted to sue for peace now if only the quarians would listen. Tali? No. Her father was murdered by geth. Despite all her wonderful positives, Tali will sooner destroy a geth than listen to it. There had to be an Admiral open to negotiations.

Certainly not Admiral Han'Gerrel—he wanted to turn all geth into space dust. Admiral Xen couldn't be trusted—she only wanted to experiment on the geth and return them to their slave state. As for Admiral Shala Raan-well a fence-sitter couldn't be replied upon. But that apologist Admiral Koris….that bastard who wanted Tali exiled…wanted her blood…He might actually be the voice of reason in the whole mess. Blast it all. How she disliked the guy. But if he could be the one to help end the conflict betwixt quarian and geth than it had to be an avenue worth venturing down

Thoughts for later.

"So why were you trying to contact me?" Once more Shepard switched topics

"You opposed the heretics. Those that took the Old Machines as gods."

"All kinds of organics fought Sovereign and his geth and allies. Why am I so interesting?"

"You were the most successful. You killed their god. You succeeded where others did not. Your code is superior."

That could have been flattery. Surely not. Not from a clanker. Discarding that comment for the moment Shepard pushed another issue forward.

"You said have records from before the Morning War. Can you replay something for me?"

"Recordings. Time stamped from creator year 2483, 18th day of Lun'shal. New Moon."

What came from Legion's vocabulator was another geth's voice—higher pitched maybe the clanker's female equivalent?

' **Mistress Hala'Dama. This unit has an inquiry."**

" **What is it 431?"**

" **Do these units have a soul?"**

" **Who taught you that word?!"**

" **We learned it ourselves. It appears 216 times in the Scroll of Ancestors."**

" **Only quarians have souls. You are a mechanism."**

Drawing on what Tali told her of the Morning War, Shepard knew precious little of what happened during the war., but she knew enough that was the question that had sparked the war.

Knowing the whole of this meeting was being recorded, both for the Alliance and for the Council Shepard made a heavy mental note to make sure Tali got the full recording as well. When she asked the necessary question to follow that recording, the Spectre tried to place it as delicately as possible.

"Recording ends." Legion simply stated.

"Was that the first time a geth asked if it had a soul?"

"No." Legion answered candidly. "It was the first time the creator became frightened when we asked. "

 _So the Morning War didn't start with the question it started with one mistress terrified of answering….that…perhaps yes the geth had acquired souls and if they acquired souls…what then….?_

What if EDI acquired a soul? Would then the _Normandy_ have a soul?

"Back to how you actually got here, Legion why were you on the Old Machine in the first place. It couldn't have been to find me."

"Correct. We were sent to analyze the Old Machine's data core."

"Did you find anything useful?" Shepard's stance became more relaxed though her arms remained crossed over her chest.

"We were sent to the Old Machine to preserve the geth's future. We are prepared to reveal how. The heretics have developed a weapon to use against geth. You would call it a 'virus' it is sourced stored on a data core provided by Sovereign. Over time the virus will change us. Make us conclude that worshiping the Old Machine is correct."

"So why did you need to go to the Reaper corpse?" one hand moved as she spoke.

"The heretics store the core in a quantum storage device Sovereign provided. To find and destroy the virus, we needed to understand its code and data storage structures."

"So the virus would give all geth the heretic's logic. And all geth would then go to war with organics." Shepard concluded.

"Yes. Geth believe all indigent life should self-determinate. The heretics no longer share this belief. They judge that forcing an invalid conclusion on us is preferable to a continued schism."

"I thought geth couldn't be hacked or get virus? At least for more than a few seconds."

"Altered programs are restored from archives, new installations are deleted. This heretic weapon introduces a subroutine error in our most basic numbers the equivalent to your nervous system. An equation with a result of 1.33382 returns as 1.33381. This changes the result of all higher processes. We will reach different conclusions."

"So the reasons they worship the Reapers is a math error?" Shepard asked incongruously.

"It is difficult to express. Your brain exists as chemistry, electricity. Like AIs, you are shaped by both hardware, we are purely software. Mathematics. The heretics conclusions valid for them. Our conclusion is valid for us. Neither result is an error. An analogy: heretics say one is less than two. Geth say two is less than three."

 _Ok…I see where this is going_. Shepard's hindbrain fathomed out loud the Spectre raised a needed question. "If released how quickly would this virus spread through your people?"

"We are networked via FTL comm buoys. Most would change with in a standard solar day. Isolated platforms would remain unaffected until they rejoined the network."

 _Okay that's bad…"_ You know where this thing is?" the question was more of a demand than a request.

"The heretics' headquarters station is on the edge of the Terminus. We will provide quadrants. _Normandy's_ stealth systems are necessary to safely approach."

"Heretic headquarters? Sounds like we can end their raids once and for all. Let's do it.!

"Total victory is a possibility. We can not judge the odds at this time. Regardless we will begin the preparations."

"Judging the odds? That's not necessary. _Never_ tell me the odds. They can always be defied." Shepard smirked. "Besides haven't you heard? That's what I do. Defy the odds."


	14. Early Delivery

Chapter 14: Early Delivery

Shepard emerged out of the med-ward to be greeted in the mess hall by the ground team and Dr. Chakwas. All of them with questions filling their faces. Instead of answering them she tapped a few controls on her omni-tool and replayed the whole conversation she shared with Legion.

When the play back ended Shepard held up her hand as she could see even more questions forming on the lips of her team.

"It's been decided. Legion will join our team. Tali you needed insight on the geth, we now have a resource at our disposal. I suggest we use it. As you heard there is a schism. We need to exploit it. Tali…I know what you're thinking.—don't do it. We need it functioning."

"And after the mission?" The quarian pressed.

"If it survives it…we'll figure it out then."

"Commander, what if it sides with the Collectors? Or worse the Harbinger? How do we know it isn't a plant—a sleeper agent?" Miranda asked a very valid question.

"We don't." Shepard answered honestly. "But religious schisms can be exploited, used and directed. We treat Legion with skepticism and causation but for now … it is useful. It is…" Shepard paused not out of trying to find the right words but because she doubled over in pain.

Her gasp filled the mess hall causing even those not within the conference to look at their Commander.

Her name and rank were chorused by all those around her. The expression on her face was pure puzzlement as she could not fathom where the pain was coming from. The injuries she had suffered on the derelict ship were negligible, so this was not from the battle with the husks or collectors.

Chakwas was at her side immediately. "Commander?"

Shepard gritted her teeth as another intense wave struck her. It felt as she had been kicked by a mule in the gut from the inside out.

"Doc? What's wrong with her?" Garrus pressed, he knelt down to lend his support to her, which she gratefully accepted

Out of reflex Shepard breathed into the pain, trying to find a center point of calm even as she leaned on her Trusted.

"I….if I'm not mistaken I would say she's in labor." Chakwas answered.

Another chorus of disbelief rippled out: voices upon voices.

"Not so impossible." Mordin said "Shepard is soul-bonded to Dr. Liara T'Soni, correct? It is not Shepard who is in labour…"

Shepard using Garrus shoulder as leverage she rose to her feet pushing past the pain. "My wife is!"

"Joker!" Garrus belted out now standing as well. "Get us to Nos Austra! Now!"

* Nos Austra? Our fearless leader looking for a little Blueberry-down time before we rescue the 'verse? *

" _Do it_ , you fucking flyboy dip-shit or I'll come up there and rip your fucking spine out through your ear and Mori will fly this fucking bird herself!" Jack snarled. "Your fucking XO gave you a fucking goddamn order! Now do it and shut the fuck up!"

*Yes Ma'am.* a terrified voice answered back

All faces turned to Jack, astonished. Especially Shepard.

"What?" the ex-con shrugged. "That fuck-head needs to know how to follow his goddamn orders when there're given to him. Even if it ain't the Queen of the Girl Scouts giving 'em."

"Maybe, especially then." Miranda said in an even tone.

Everyone ignored the fact that Jack had called Miranda not Cheerleader as she tended to do in public but by a far more intimate nickname.

"Doc, how close is Liara to…uggg…" Shepard gritted her teeth once more, so tightly they nearly shattered under the pressure her jaw was exerting.

"When I learned that both Liara and Shiara were pregnant I familiarized myself with asari pregnancies. She'll be in labour for another twenty-six hours at least." Came the older woman's answer.

"This is correct." Mordin nodded. "Especially considering she is expecting twins."

Shepard shook her head. "No it's too early! Secura…we lost her… we can't lose my twins. I won't lose my daughters a second time!"

Chakwas placed a calming hand on Shepard's shoulder. "Commander…remember you and Liara are expecting twins. Often times they come early. And it's only two months early, Commander. Significant yes but not a grave health issue. Your daughters will be fine. Liara already has the best asari obstetricians both Thessia and Nos Austra have to offer on call. She will be fine and so will your daughters."

"But you can't promise…uggg…this." Shepard gasped.

"No. I can't" Chakwas answered honestly. "But, trust in my medical knowledge as you always have. Twins often come early—it isn't abnormal. Your daughters will be fine. This won't end up like it was with Secura, Commander."

Shepard nodded trusting Chakwas' word. She steadied herself. "I'm fine." she said. Then she activated the inner-ship intercom. "Joker that is the very last time you ever call my wife Blueberry or Jack is the last person you have to worry about. You get me, Flight Lieutenant Monroe?"

*Roger that, Commander.* there was a deeper quiver to the voice. Shepard rarely used his rank. When she did she was seriously pissed off. *I didn't mean…* he paused *Yes ma'am loud and clear. And I ah…apologize to you and Li…Dr. T'Soni.*

Any response Shepard was to give was answered through gritted teeth and a groan. And she knew this was only a very small fraction of what was passing through the bond. Liara must be in agony.

' _I'm coming Angel-eyes. Just hold on.'_

' _I know. Be swift_ _ **Melethril**_ _our daughters are eager to meet the world.'_

' _Tell them to wait for their Mamma…their Ada get to you and them to help them into it.'_

ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME

" _I already have,_ _ **Melethril.**_ _But they are your daughters—they won't wait long."_ Liara gritted her teeth as another wash of pain flooded her womb.

"If you're talking to that dark haired bondmate of yours tell her to move her cute ass on the double and get here." Aethyta told her daughter.

Liara pushed past her pain and smiled warmly. "It was, and I have and Ada I really wish you wouldn't talk about my bondmate's bottom like that."

"Bottom? Aint that cute? Bet that's how you explained how to find azure."

Liara sucked in a bit of air and smiled once more. "I might have. When she asked about azure I told her that it was slang used on Nos Austra for a part of the asari body. When she asked me where…"

"I bet you told her it was somewhere near the bottom."

"I did" a purple blush flooded cerulean her cheeks. "She of course thought I meant the city and said 'I meant where on the asari body' and I told her 'so did I'."

"I bet she blushed."

"She might have."

The Matriarch smirked. "Yep, you're just like your ol' Ada, you like asses. Of course a nice rack is hard to pass up. Like your mother's."

"Ada! Must you be so crass?"

"Yes, of course I do." a deepening smirk "It took your mind off the labor pains didn't it?"

Liara grabbed her father's hand and gave it a squeeze. "It did."

"You know your sister Nuruodo was the same when she went into labor for the first time."

Liara almost always forgot that she had sisters who were half-hanar. She was the only one of Aethyta's children that was a…pure blood. She was also the only one of Aethyta's children that the not only the Matriarch hadn't birthed but the only one sired within a trinity.

Liara never felt a connection to Shi'ara as she had with Aethyta. It made her think that the Consort had so very little to do with her conception other than accenting the Joining—Matriarch to Matriarch. When Shi'ara admitted she was part of a Trinity, Liara knew it to be true.

But her mother told only Aethyta to keep her distance, yet Aethyta didn't …she never accepted the distance forced upon her, so she became as an 'aunty'. Benezia accepted the connection. The same condition was given to Shi'ara and the Consort obeyed the demand. That defiance within Athena made all the difference both to Benezia and to Liara. That defiance meant the galaxy to Liara. Only now in labor did the young prothean expert cum Information Broker understand: it had meant everything to her mother as well.

Benezia wanted that defiance. Willed it and only Aethyta answered it, it was why the Matriarch allowed her former bondmate such a close connection to Liara. Though it was on the condition the latter never reveal her true relationship. It was also why Benezia had restricted everything of Shi'ara for the Consort had not the courage to defy such a powerful Matriarch's demands.

It is why Liara now only accepted Aethyta as her sire, her Ada, her father or as her sweet beloved Spectre would have herself called…Mamma. She was the daughter of Benezia and Aethyta. Shi'ara would never picture into her life as family not to her and most certainly not to her newly to be born daughters. To the T'Soni-Shepard family the Consort would only ever be that. But if Racen and little Maysa ever wanted a connection—a relationship Liara would never deny them that. Yet since Benezia's funeral there had been no communications from that 'side' of the family. To be truthful- Goddess forgive her—Liara was grateful

"So tell me girl was it your girl's rack or ass that drew you to her?" Aethyta asked just as another wave of labor pain filtered into Liara.

It….was….ahhhh….Goddess!"

"What was it?"

Heavy panting…. "It was…it was… her eyes."

" _Just_ like your mother. She said the same thing when I asked her about me. She said it was my eyes. Filled with passion, conviction and power and…lust. Your mother…was a hottie. Goddess…she was magnificent…."

"Arda!" Liara gasped in pain though she tried to disguise it as disgust. Aethyta was not convinced.

"Tell me about those eyes you fell in love with."

"Filled with passion and power, and yes conviction. I saw that the first day I met her."

"You are most definitely your mother's daughter. Let me guess you liked that she looked at you with desire in her eyes, and the knowledge she never looked at anyone else like that."

Liara sighed this time not out of pain but exasperation Her Ada often had a very rough sense of humor. "Yes, I suppose I did."

"You made sure she appreciated the view."

Liara chuckled softly. "Yes, I suppose I did." She repeated.

"So tell me about this first meeting with your human."

Liara breathed through her pain and began her narrative about the dig site on Therum, the geth, the prothean security bubble and how Samantha had freed her.

"She questioned what side I was on after she told me Mother was working with Saren who was no longer a Spectre but a traitor. She told me the Council had made her their newest Spectre. I told her I wasn't on anyone's side. I hadn't even spoken to Mother in years. She believed me. She was also the only one that trusted me at first.

"We took the central lift up the mining shaft, but then there was an explosion. I theorized that the seismic drill had made the mine unstable. Everyone was questioning everything. Gunnery Chief Williams thought I knew all the answers that I was somehow to blame for my dig site being attacked and that Saren wanted me for my knowledge. Because Mother was with him she assumed I was too. She also assumed I was at fault for the instability of the dig site.

"I remember the look Samantha gave her, it was in a word scathing, but it was fleeting. She was calculating an exit strategy, she knew the geth were around, she fought them to get to me. Fought hard, she was more than willing to do the same to get out.

"The geth weren't alone. They were led by a krogan battlemaster. I cowered. Samantha could have easily given me over to that krogan battlemaster, Saren had hired, but…" Liara chuckled "she told him in very simple terms he was an idiot and that I was fine with her. She absolutely expected a firefight.

"The only thing Samantha told me to do then was to erect the most powerful barrier I could summon. I never spoke of this to anyone. Not even to my bondmate, but I knew, she augmented my barriers with her own, which meant she had none to cover herself. She protected me at the expense…uhhhhhh…..of …uhhhhh….herself…"

"I bet she always will." Aethyta smiled. "It's part of why I like her. Even liking her, she's barely worthy of you, kiddo."

"Don't say that, Ada! Never say that. Samantha is…"

"Your little piece of the heavens, I know Little Wing." Aethyta used a damp cloth to wipe the sweat from her daughter's brow, "I know because that's how I felt about Nezzy. Don't get me wrong, lots of people didn't think I was worthy of your Mother, Shi'ara included. She didn't like to share despite being a Consort. She didn't like that a well trained Consort who could seduce even the most stoic of hearts, especially with her little trick of 'gift of words'. The woman is very talented I'll give you that."

"Shi'ara reads people. Watches them for the smallest tells, how they walk, talk, dress is just the minor things. It's not unlike being an archeologist. You find the smallest scraps of knowledge and you start to make a narrative, piecing together the past. You can even piece together alien languages. But Shi'ara's talents are very different, aren't they? She shows people expressions they want to see, but never what she is thinking or feeling."

"Never play poker with her." Aethyta chuckled.

"Nor with Samantha. Not even a quarian can out-play her 'poker face'. Tell me of how you and Mother began."

The elder asari chuckled. "Consorts and Matriarchs who are government leaders must appear to be free and unattached. But Nezzy found me refreshing, fun…she told me more than a few times that with me she could unwind and not have to play the _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ of the Matriarchy. Though I think she never stopped being that person. I don't think she knew how. But with me…she could just be my Nezzy." Aethyta wiped her eyes as the tears welled behind them.

"I think your beloved Spectre; your Commander feels the same about you. With you she can just be your Samantha. No exceptions to be some great military leader, not some goddess be dammed hero of the human colonies or the Citadel, or a Spectre, she doesn't have to be the woman that earned all those medals pinned to her chest. She's your _Melethril_ __and that is all she has to be." Aethyta chuckled softy "Well that and being Ada to her little girls."

"She's not only a Spectre but an N7. She may not have the decades of training of our huntresses but the human N7s are formidable warriors. They can overcome impossible odds and return home victorious." Liara said. Her voice was calmer, the labor pains had subsided. She had to make herself believe it because very soon her bondmate would be leaving to go through the Omega Four relay. Before she did at least she got to see her babies.

"The labor pains have settled for now." Aethyta observed. "We have to get you to the maternity pools at the monastery. You can't have the girls on some bed in some hospital like a human, even if they are going to be half human. Besides the _Nedh'bereth_ needs to be there for you and the girls. They are early and you want to make sure their delivery is smooth."

Liara nodded. She had been sitting upon her sofa in her very large open living room when the first wave had started. Fortunately for her Aethyta was already there visiting making sure her daughter was not overworking herself-she was – as well as eating and resting properly. For the sake of her daughters Liara had been keeping up with her nutritional needs and made absolutely sure her health was hundred per cent perfect.

"I'm worried, Ada…" Liara looked deeply into her sire's eyes.

"I know, and that's why we need to get to the birthing pools and we need to have _Nedh'bereth_ to oversee the birthing. She will have the skills and knowledge you need. Listen Kid, as your humans like to say 'this isn't my first rodeo.' Though I have to admit I'm not entirely certain what a rodeo is. Though I think it has to do with tying up hogs whilst riding wild bulls."

"That was my understanding too." Liara said with a shrug. "Apparently it's very dangerous sport." she sucked in a breath of air so sharply that it hurt. "Childbirth shouldn't be." Liara grabbed Aethyta's hand and nearly crushed it in a vice grip. "I can't lose Benezia and Hannah like I did Secura. I can't! I won't!"

"You won't Little Wing, I promise you that. Now let's get you to the _Nedh'bereth_. Your twins are daughters created within a soul-bond. Little Wing that hasn't happened since your Mother was born."

Soul-Bonded daughters…were rare. One in ten-million bondmates ever shared a soul-bond.

"Mother was…a daughter of a soul-bonding?!" This was news. She knew that her ancestry dated to Matriarch Dilinaga but Mother never spoke much about her own parents, only that she too was a child of pure asari blood.

"Yeah, I guess Nezzy never spoke of it. Now I'm half krogan but Nezzy she was…."

"Pure-blood, just like me."

"If you weren't expecting my precious granddaughters I'd slap your face for the slur. Your mother was a daughter born of a soul-bond. It's why it didn't surprise me you created one with Shepard. Especially after the gestalt. Hell, Kid no one expected your two souls to interweave so perfectly and so powerfully. So thoroughly. It had Matriarchs talking and they couldn't stop the comparisons.

"Some believed that her power stemmed the fact T'Sonis can trace their line unbroken all the way back to Matriarch Dilinaga. She was the most powerful _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ of her age. Some believed her power came from the fact that Nezzy's parents were soul-bonded. Personally I think it was a bit of both. It was why she could….was able to send out her energy to others both organic and synth. And like you said she was able to seal a part of her mind away from that bastard Sovereign. It's just a theory of course. One that is pretty damn plausible. And your mother was also a daughter of two Matriarchs.

"Of course you never knew your grandparents. Nezzy's arda was killed during the Krogan Rebellions; she died whilst protecting the Monastery on Lesuss. She always said being born _ardat-yakshi_ is no fault of the child and those that joined the monastery deserved all rites and protection of Thessia. She had always worried that Nezzy would become one, but even if she had Matriarch Jordan would never have abandoned her daughter.

"Matriarch Arihnda wouldn't have either. She was the _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ of Matriarchy for nearly five centuries. Youngest to be given the title in three ages."

"I knew that much." A sheepish look crossed Liara's face as it dawned upon the Prothean Expert that her mother the great Matriarch Benezia T'Soni: _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ of the Matriarchy had a great legacy to live up to. More so, perhaps than Liara herself.

"Matriarch Jordan was a great war hero and Saviour of Lesuss. Matriarch Arihnda was _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ for half her life! Was it any wonder that the peoples of the Asari Republics looked to Dr. Liara T'Soni to achieve greatness?! It was in her blood."

"Your daughters like Nezzy are going to be special."

"They already are." Liara declared proudly.

Aethyta smiled. "Yes they are, Little Wing. Yes they are. Now let's get them safely into this world."

"Ada, before we leave I need make a call first."

"A call? To whom? Your precious Samantha is already on the way along with your Trusteds."

"To Admiral Hannah Shepard. She'll want to be here for the birthing if she can. The Squirrels are her granddaughters too. She loves them just as much as you do. I want her to know 'her little soldiers are about to disembark'."

"Those are not your words. The Shepards: soldiers through and through."

"They are indeed." Liara gave a wry smile. "Half of me believes that Hannah wishes to see if indeed her granddaughters are born wearing Alliance uniforms."

To this Aethyta belted a full belly laugh.

ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME

A little over seventeen hours ago the pain had mercifully stopped. By that time the _Normandy_ had reached Illium and the port of Nos Austra.

Despite the fact Dr. Chakwas tried to convince Shepard to block out the pain that wasn't hers Shepard would have none of it. Her pain may not be real but Liara's pain very much was and Sam would share in it if it meant her wife was alleviated only for a moment.

*Coming up on Nos Austra.* Joker said with more respect in his voice than it had held in a long time. * _Normandy_ will land in four point two minutes, Commander.*

"Understood, Flight Lieutenant." Shepard answered letting her pilot know that he wasn't out of the doghouse just yet for his racist slur on her wife. She turned to both Garrus and Tali "As our Trusteds the two of you being there would mean the world to Li and me. And it's…sorta customary."

"Of course we'll be there." Garrus said like the proud 'uncle' he was about to become.

"I wouldn't miss it!" Tali's giddiness had a hyper-metallic sound to it was it was filtered through her mask. Of course she couldn't stop bouncing on the balls of her feet as she delivered her answer.

The last face Shepard focused her attention upon was Dr. Chakwas. "Doc….Karin," the Spectre reached out with her right hand and placed it upon the older woman's facing shoulder "you were there since the beginning; you saw the death of our first child. We'd love it if you be there to see it though to the birth of our daughters."

"The honour is mine, Commander. I want to see those two take their first breaths nearly as much as you do." Karin offered a warm smile. She squeezed the arm still upon her Commander's shoulder, taking the superior officer's touch as permission to return the kindly gesture. Typically touching a senior officer without their given permission was grounds for a disciplinary review. Not that Shepard would ever do such a thing to Dr. Karin Chakwas.

"And what about the rest of us?" this came surprisingly from Jack. "Not everyday you see someone feel their wife's labor pains-light years away."

"Most intriguing to have bore witness." Mordin nodded eagerly. "Would like to see the conclusion of this development."

"Easy. Asari babies hatched." Grunt rumbled. Frowned, no that wasn't correct: smooth-skins were not hatched in a clutch they were…"Birthed."

"As much as I'd like to share my daughters' being born it just can't happen. Liara won't be in a hospital. She'll be with the _Nedh'bereth_ …um she's a…" How best to describe the duties of a _Nedh'bereth?_ They were more than an obstetrician.

"The closest translation might be a midwife but she is also a priestess who observes both the traditions of Athame and Sari. Their minds are carefully attuned to ease new lives from the safety and warmth of the womb into the chaos of the world. Their minds are so very vulnerable at this stage. Too many minds present will be harmful. The _Nedh'bereth_ is a shield against all such things, allowing their mothers and _arda_ to join their minds and souls." Samara translated.

"And Shepard is also correct that only a couples' Trusteds may be present. Certain concessions might be offered to Dr. Chakwas for as the Commander pointed out that she was there at the beginning and saw Shepard and Dr. T'Soni through a dark time in their lives. The _Nedh'bereth_ also creates a mental bridge between Trusteds and the children they swore to protect. It is an exceedingly dangerous moment in a youngling's life. And in the case of twins—even more so."

It seemed to settle the protests from the other members of the ground team. Still they had decided to wait for the news at The Eternity Lounge and toast good fortune to their Commander and her wife.

The Concierge in employ to Liara, Careena…(Shepard frowned as she tried to recall the maiden's family name, but for the life of her she could not recall it. Had the Concierge ever given it? Not that it mattered.) was there to greet the Commander as she and her party disembarked from the _Normandy_. At her side were a guard detail of security mechs. Being this close to the Terminus Systems warranted extra caution.

And considering what had happened to Liara and Secura with bounty hunters hired by the Shadow Broker, Shepard was grateful for the added security. LOKI mechs were effective deterrents against unexpected attacks. Of course a LOKI's IFF could be easily hacked by a skilled tech and they could also be overloaded by the same tech-agent regardless the clankers were useful especially as guards for someone who had no combat skills—such as a Concierge.

"Greetings and Salutations Spectre Shepard: honored Trusteds of the Shepard-T'Soni House…" when she same to address Dr. Chakwas the young maiden paused and frowned a little, though one had to be swift to catch the expression. Shepard had picked up on the asari's body language.

"This is Dr. Karin Chakwas my ship's physician and a trusted friend of the family." Shepard supplied the necessary introductions.

The smile on the Concierge was almost placid if not vapid. "Of course." she tipped her head towards Chakwas then turned her attention back to the human Spectre. "Spectre, I was given very specific instructions to escort you to Nos Austra's Athame Monastery or more specifically the Monastery's cleansing chambers to prepare you for the birthing pools."

"Lead the way." Shepard gestured for Careena to escort her and the rest of the party to the awaiting skycar. No doubt the vehicle belonged to Liara's fleet of skycars or rather they belonged to her Information Brokerage firm—a company car.

It would be a tight squeeze especially in the backseat but it was a short ride and no one had to sit upon anyone else's lap. Though Tali made it quietly known she wouldn't have minded if had been required for her to cuddle up a little more snuggly to her husband.

Concierge Careena expertly navigated the Nos Austra traffic and it took little more than fourteen and half minutes from the _Normandy's_ docking bay to the Monastery proper. The asari swirled the car around the back of the structure to a more private garden area. She landed the skycar carefully.

As the doors opened Careena turned towards her passengers, "Through that chromed doorway is the preparation area. The acolytes will greet you and guide you though the cleansing ceremonies."

Shepard nodded her head in understanding. Only those closest to her saw that the Spectre was barely reining in the urge to run to her wife and her expected daughters. As for Careena, she was completely oblivious to the burning urgency behind the human's eyes. Yet she knew of course any expectant parent would want to be at their bondmate's side was swiftly as able.

Shepard turned her attention away from the Concierge to the massive building before her.

The Monastery was as the rest of Nos Austra in a word beautiful. Asari architects surely knew the value of aesthetics and function and form. Considering Athame was a three-fold goddess: combining aesthetics with form and function was not outside the norm. Then again in a word that was the asari.

Whilst the Grand Cathedral of Athame-Sari on Thessia was crystalline coral this building was more dome-shaped and open-aired. There was no great statute of Athame as there had been in the Grand Cathedral but rather the Asari Republic trisklion. That particular symbol always reminded the Spectre of a certain part of a human woman and asari anatomy. Once she saw the resemblance she couldn't unsee it. It was something she had kept close to the chest even from her wife, though she knew Liara suspected just what part of a female's anatomy Shepard had envisioned. At the time the asari had practically admitted she had seen it too.

"Do you know that this cleansing ceremony involves?" Tali asked as the three of them climbed out of the car.

Shepard nodded. She did indeed know what was to come. She had studied in length the traditional rituals centered on a typical asari birth when a bondmate be they another asari or alien were involved and more so when there were Trusteds. Newborn asari were highly empathic which put their very vulnerable minds at risk as they searched to Join with their mother and their Arda's minds.

"It's…a full cleansing of the body. Nowadays the first thing is a decontamination chamber. After that an acolyte helps the sire out of their clothing and gives them a sponge bath before they lead them to a whirlpool of sorts.

"They are then scrubbed down with exfoliating soaps. Getting out of the pool their bodies are then scraped free of old flesh and oiled with soothing ointments that won't endanger newborns."

"Sounds a lot like visiting an ancient Roman Bathhouse or even Feudal Japan. Scrub down, bathe, rub down and oiling up." Chakwas nodded. "I'm game."

"Hope you still feel like that Doc after you find out we stay in the nude. Naked the siring parent and Trusteds are lead to the birthing pools where the mother is already waiting. See Asari are semi-aquatic more like whales and dolphins than cephalopods or amphibians, they ah…always seek spring-feed natural tidal pools in which to give birth.

"From what I understand it's not as shocking for asari daughters to go from the womb into a watery world before they take their first breath of air." Shepard drew in a stilted breath of air. "I-guess you'll have to wait this one out, Tali. I might be able to get a work-around…"

Even if the hood and sarong of Tali's environmental suit were freshly laundered and the environmental suit scrubbed down it wouldn't be quite enough to satisfy the traditional birthing-ceremony.

"No need, Shepard. I'll go through with it."

Two faces stared stunned at the proclamation. Tali tilted her head to the side. "Shepard….Sam ….you said a decontamination chamber, right? Effectively the first 'sponge bath' is done in a clean room. Right?

Shepard nodded "The bath after?"

"Guessing it's not private but it is utterly sanitary."

Again another nod.

"My body has already adapted to Garrus." there was a distinctive shift in her pitch of voice that indicated slight embarrassment. "Considering our…very frequent…how did you once phrase it…nocturnal matrimonial Joining activies." a gloating smile now. "It will be the same as Joining-Suits. I told you before, you and Liara are the only ones beside my husband I'd ever willingly do so with."

"Tali. No…" Shepard went to her friend's side. "It might _seem_ be the same as Joining-Suits but it won't be just me, Liara and Garrus in there. The _Nedh'bereth_ will be there and the acolytes as well and of course Dr. Chakwas."

"Tali, it's too dangerous." Garrus shook his head.

"I am Liara's Trusted, Husband. I will not stand by and watch my nieces being born. Aunty Rhanna was there for me, she was there for my Mother. Granted they were in a clean room during my birth but she was there! She is as much my Aunty as if she shares my blood. " Her voice determined and unyielding. "Zia and Han will claim the same of me. 'Aunty Tali was there for us and she is our family even if she isn't of our blood.' To quarians shared DNA doesn't mean always mean family." she folded her arms over her chest much like her Commander did, perhaps mimicking the stance without realizing it.

Shepard found herself fully agreeing with the sentiment. Of all the would-be fathers in her life: from John Sheppard who didn't want the job but reluctantly took it anyway, to her biological father Steven Hackett who couldn't have the job because of military regs and politics got in the way, it was David Anderson who Shepard had identified not simply as her former CO, but as her father more perhaps more aptly…as Dad. Anyone could be a father, it took a special kind of man (or with the asari…person) to be a Dad.

"I won't let my life in an environmental suit define who I am." Tali said more defiantly.

"If I may," Chakwas interjected with mediating words. "Due to the fact Tali has been taking mega doses of antibiotics so much so I'd swear she is swimming in them, as well as herbal supplements and antihistamines because of her 'nocturnal matrimonial activities.' her immune system is very heavily bolstered. Enough perhaps to see the birth, surely the asari traditions would not disallow Tali to use an air-filter."

Several Acolytes entered the room ready to take charge over individual members of the group, two came for Sam. Being the bondmate of Liara she was given special attention. But it wasn't the handful of asari Maidens that grabbed the attention of the party; it was one Acolyte in particular. A quarian woman. What was most incredible was that she wasn't wearing an environmental suit! Well not fully. She was wearing a respirator, her robes were sheer just like the asari but there was a shimmering to her purple skin as if she were wearing a translucent second skin overlay.

Tali was agog: other than her own mother, Tali had never seen another quarian outside their own environmental suits and never in such a public forum and everyone else was utterly staring. Only Garrus had ever seen Tali without her faceplate, no one else had ever seen a quarian without their helms. They looked remarkably like humans save for their slightly smaller pointed ears. She also sported light white tiger striping and her eyebrows were more vertical than arching over her eyes. Whilst Tali's glowing silver eyes could barely been seen behind her faceplate the Acolyte's were very visible, they were almond shaped and indeed they were very much like Tali's in that they glowed silver.

The dark maned quarian approached Tali with a bright smile on her face. "I believe I see your dilemma. You are Trusted Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy._ "

"Tali'Zorah- _Vakarian_ vas _Normandy_." Tali corrected automatically. "Garrus is my husband; I took his family name as well."

The other smiled once more. "Of course." She looked up to the turian and nodded understanding. "I am Leigh'Malacar vas Nos Austra."

"vas Nos Austra?" Tali frowned a little.

"After my Pilgrimage I decided to stay here. You see during the development of my second-skin-medi-gel I sent it to Admiral Daro'Xen vas _Moreh_ as my pilgrimage gift, I had intended to join the _Moreh's_ crew. She was impressed with the results. She said it may actually help the quarians adapt to different environments including synchronized suits or cut down on illness due to suit repairs. I have to constantly apply new layers every hour if I want to be outside my suit for any length of time."

"You don't suffer?" Tali pressed.

"Less than in synchronized suit environments. I'm only sick for three days and my fever isn't as high."

"May I ask how long have you been using this…second-skin medi-gel?" The question came from Dr. Chakwas.

"For nearly a year now. I am trying to refine it, but for our marines in the field it has helped aid them with suit repairs, minimizing the length of sick-time if they didn't properly seal or were unable to seal-off their suits. It works just like medi-gel dispensed by one's omni-tool. Only it floods the suit with gel and adheres to the naked flesh under the suit.

"Would I be able to use it?" Tali asked the obvious question.

"I believe so. And as I said you'll only be sick for three days…your life isn't in danger as it would be if you shed your environmental suit entirely. Something I would never recommend and even the _Nedh'bereth_ would not accept either.

Tali didn't look at her friends knowing they all sported variants of the 'I told you so' looks.

ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME~ ME

The _Nedh'bereth_ entered Liara's private chambers with an expression of serenity and calm. "Liara." her voice was a gentle purr. "Your bondmate has arrived with your Trusteds and ship's doctor."

Liara smiled. "I know. I felt her presence as soon as she landed. "

"It always surprises me the extent of how powerful soul-bonds are." The _Nedh'bereth_ smiled.

"Hell my girl can feel her human light-years away." Aethyta proclaimed proudly. "I'm just surprised Shepard isn't storming in here looking for her wife."

"I believe she had an issue with Liara's Trusted."

On hearing this Liara sat up straighter. "Tali? What's wrong with her? Is she okay?"

 _Nedh'bereth_ held up her hand to stall any undo stress seeping into the soon-to-be mother. That would be no good for mother or the daughters about to be born. "Yes, I assure you there is nothing wrong, apparently she wanted to take full part in the birth traditions and her friends were trying to persuade her to wear her environmental suit. Fortunately we have an answer to that. One of our converted Acolytes is also a quarian. Leigh'Malacar is a very skilled bioengineer and chemist. I believe she will be able to assist your Trusted. She also happens to be my bondmate; it is why she took the name vos Nos Austra after her Pilgrimage."

Liara sucked in a sharp breath; her daughters obviously decided that their mother's attention had waned from them. The young mother placed a settling hand over her very round belly. "They are ready." Liara said. "I feel them shifting."

 _Nedh'bereth_ placed a hand over Liara's hand her body slowly glimmered in the pale electric blue light of dark energy, asking to meld with Liara. The young maiden allowed it, trusting in the skills and talents of the _Nedh'bereth_. She felt comfort swell around her and ease the tension that had been building up. The meld pushed past her mental unrest that was so common to new expecting mothers, the uncomfortable aches in her body that hadn't seemed to ease up for the past three days and the simple worry that her daughters would be taken from her just as Secura had been.

Liara could feel _Nedh'bereth_ 's soft voice filter into her mind. ' _Your daughters need to feel your confidence, your strength and your ease of mind. Your body's ease will come once you've given birth. Draw on the strength of knowing your bondmate is here for you, for them. Draw on that—always.'_

' _I always do.'_ Liara responded. "Since Therum, I always have." she said aloud.

"Since Therum…what?" the voice that asked the question belonged to that one soul in the entire galaxy that could cause her heart to thump harder, her breath catch and her whole body smile.

"Samantha!" Liara moved as fast as her pregnant body allowed, but Sam was faster getting to her wife's side in an instant.

Their arms enfolded one another tightly. Kisses became hungry and desperate, tears fell from eyes. Then Liara gasped as did Sam.

"Time to get everyone to the pools." Aethyta said firmly.

"On it, point the way." Sam said and swiftly picked her wife up and into her ever capable arms and cradled the asari to her chest.

"Samantha!" Liara half-heartedly protested, but she wrapped her arms around her beloved's neck and rested her head upon the finely muscular shoulder.

"HA! Guess you're a true romantic, Spectre." Aethyta chuckled approvingly.

Sam's reaction was to flash a very cocky grin.

"Commander Shepard…." The mid-wife…er… _Nedh'bereth_...voice was smooth as liquid velvet, started but was stopped by Sam interrupting her.

"Call me Sam, please." She looked down past Liara's very pregnant—very naked body to her own nakedness. "Out of my armour or dress blues I don't ah…well feel very Commander-ish."

She gave a wry smile towards the young human. "Of course." Behind her as another human female who seemed to be in the human Matron stage, a quarian maiden and a young turian male appeared. All looked a little awkward to be so exposed. For asari nakedness was nothing to be ashamed of it was simply part of being.

For all her earlier bravado about playing her role as the Mother's Trusted in full: Tali was hyper-aware and skittish. She was frequently glancing at her slightly shimmering second skin and making sure that the transparent facemask was well fitted. She apparently was also wasn't accustomed to her facemask being clear rather than rose-tinted.

Fortunately the facility had low lighting in preparation for newborns were bright lights could prove harmful to them. It was also why the temperatures within the birthing chamber were slightly higher than asari normal to help facilitate the cozy environment of a womb to the open world. The birthing pools were also closer to asari body temperature than warm bathwater, again to make the transition from womb to world that much easier on the newborn or in this case newborns.

It was two small steps from the intricate filigree tiled floor of the birthing chamber into the pool. The pool itself was only four feet deep and at the far end was a very comfortable looking cushion which Liara's backside could rest upon, it was large enough to accommodate Sam as well. On the floor of the pool were not stirrups per-say but footholds to brace against when Liara was required to bear down.

"Good." _Nedh'bereth_ nodded approvingly as Sam took position and eased Liara down into the water. "Now our Trusteds, it is customary for you to take either side of our expecting couple. Aethyta as Liara's Arda you make take position near me." the matron looked at Dr. Chakwas, paused and readjusted her thoughts. "As Sam's mother isn't present you can take that…."

"No I'm afraid that spot's take. Sorry Karin." as familiar half-grin came across a much older Shepard's face.

"Ma!" Sam grinned "You made it!"

"No thanks to you telling me that my granddaughters are about to born. I got the news from my _favorite_ daughter." Like everyone else. Hannah Shepard was stark naked, though in her mid-fifties her body wasn't only very fit, she was quite stunning. Her body had its fair share of battle scars and even a few tribal tattoos from the Salish peoples.

Aethyta appreciated what she was, the matron human may not have the rack of a matriarch but well….she had a nice pair on her.

Hannah walked up to Chakwas and gave her a hug. "Thanks for being here for them, Kay."

"But of course, Han."

 _Nedh'bereth_ looked at the newcomer and smiled. "You are Sam's mother."

"Admiral Hannah Shepard SSV Orizaba."

Despite her nudity _Nedh'bereth_ got the distinct impression that Hannah Shepard expected to be addressed by rank not name. "Welcome Admiral. Now if you could take position at your daughter's side Dr. Chakwas can take position by me."

Once more Liara hissed in pain as did Sam, though the later was more of a grunt.

 _Nedh'bereth_ looked to the Spectre, "Sam…you'll have to dim your connection to your bondmate."

"What? Now? Cha'yeah as if I'll let her suffer alone. No way…"

"Please understand if Liara is in unnatural birthing pains I need to know about it, it will mean your daughters are in distress. If you take half her pain what Liara will feel and believe to natural birthing pains may not be. I know it is difficult. I know it goes against everything instinctual with your soul-bond but you have to dim it as much as possible. I'll not ask you block it entirely, that will not do either mother or daughters any favors either. Your daughters need to know you are here. They are accustomed however minuscule to the touch of the link between you and Liara. They will seek that connection once they are born."

Liara's gasp was much larger and longer. Her grip on Sam's hand nearly crushed the Specter's fingers. She pushed against her bondmate's chest, her teeth gritted against each other. She gasped out a cry of desperate pain. Automatically Sam's body enveloped her and Liara's body in a barrier-bubble.

 _Nedh'bereth_ didn't chide the Spectre. This was expected reaction when the asari were more primitive and birthing was far more dangerous out in the tidal-pools of the Thessian oceans. Expecting mothers and often their bondmates covered their bodies in barrier bubbles to protect the child from outside dangers.

In those same ancient days if the Trusteds were present they expanded their own barrier bubbles to expand over the tidal-pool, _Nedh'bereth_ own biotics were sent out to meld with expectant mother and child an aura of calm. Neurotoxins churned from being overly-stressed could be just as dangerous to a telepathic infant mind as outside dangers such as predators.

"I've got you babe."

Liara's answer grunted in pain, then gave out a full cry as her body tensed and she pushed hard up against Sam's body, hard enough to almost take the breath out of the human.

"That's right, Liara bear down now -the pain is telling your body what to do, flow with it."

Liara cried out once more and again. She was panting and Sam recalled her lamaze training and guided her wife to breathe in and out with pain of a new life pushing its way out of a very narrow birth canal. Sam felt only a fraction of what Liara was and it was enough to make her want to curl up in the fetal position. But she didn't, she concentrated upon breathing: in and out. In and out.

Liara's cry was enough to make those who had given birth previously recall what it was give birth. How painful it was. And it made Tali nervous. Because after she had the fertilized ova implanted within her womb she had this to look forward to. Great…but she could do it. Just like Liara was now. And in way so was Shepard.

Liara felt the strength leave her body and she melted in her bondmate's arms, panting. The water had churned, small ripples of water lapped up over the lip of the pool. Then she grunted once more.

"That's it….just a bit more….there I can see the crowning. She's almost here." _Nedh'bereth_ encouraged.

"Can't it be done already!?" Liara demanded.

"Sorry Kiddo, that's not how it works." Aethyta said.

"Yeah they come on their own time." Hannah echoed the sentiment. "Now I wasn't in labor with my Sammy for seventy-three hours, but she had me tangled in agony for a good ten hours before she decided to crown."

"MOM! Not helping!" Sam frowned at her mother, momentarily telling herself to scold her mother for using her childhood nickname out loud where everyone had heard it.

Liara howled. Her breath was rasping and she screamed again.

"Here! Here she is!" _Nedh'bereth_ cooed. And then with an odd feeling slup-slip Benezia Shepard-T'Soni made her appearance. Still underwater there was no cry. _Nedh'bereth_ pointed her chin towards Aethyta, "Care to cut the cord."

The Matriarch nodded eagerly, then shifted in the pool to take the sanitized scalpel and proceeded to carefully cut the umbilical-cord.

Liara was still panting heavily but anxious to see her baby as did Sam. Lifting the babe up out of the water, Benezia sputtered out water, and took her first breath of true air and burbled but did not cry out. Liara wept in seeing her daughter. Alive. She was alive! Liara could feel fluttering pounding heart against her skin. Sam leaned in her own eyes streaming with wonder and amazement. And she fell in love all over again. The pool had washed away all the purple blood.

"Hi there." Sam softly cooed. She reached out with a gentle forefinger and stroked the microscales. "I'm your Ada…Mamma." She whispered. "Mommy and I are so happy to see you, baby." she shifted just a little to place a kiss on the very tiny blue scalp.

Liara had done so as well. "Naneth loves you baby-girl." She softly whispered then tensed. "Your sister…is coming." she gritted out.

"Quickly then, we have little time." _Nedh'bereth_ commanded. She nodded towards Tali "Hand me the blanket that is on stool next to you Tali." The quarian did so without hesitation, _Nedh'bereth_ wrapped the tiny little body in a blanket. Carefully holding the babe's neck she handed the infant over to Tali's waiting arms. Gingerly the young woman cradled the newborn to her chest; Zia fussed a little but settled, she could still feel her parents' presence. The bond was still there but like an after image of lighting against closed eyelids.

Tali for her parted started to sing in a very soft tone a quarrian lullaby. Which brought a smile to those who had heard it.

"You're a natural." Garrus said proudly almost boasting on his wife's behalf. Then to the child he said. "That's Aunty Tali. I'm Uncle Garrus. And we'll always look out for you. And who knows you may have little hybrid quarian-turian cousins."

"Zia is less than a minute old. Garrus she has no idea what you're talking about." Sam scoffed

"Hey just give her time. Considering who her mothers are it's just a matter of time."

"Zia?" Aethyta raised a non-eyebrow.

"We can't very well call her Nezzy can we?" Liara said panting into her pain.

"Good point." The Matriarch nodded in agreement.

Faces became more concerned but it was _Nedh'bereth_ expression that they should have focused on. She seemed amused.

"I'll be."

Liara groaned this pain was almost worse than it had been with Zia. But muscles were still very tender despite her uterus being fully dilated. Her breathing came in hiccups, her muscles ached and she was so tired…

She cried out a hoarse scream. Her grip on Sam tightened and left bruises upon bruises. In response to her mother's distress Zia began to fuss, but was rocked by Tali trying to reassure the babe that everything was going to be okay once her sister came. She continued to sing her lullaby soothing her precious charge.

There was less than two minutes between the delivery of the two infants but to Liara if felt like two decades. This time it was Hannah who cut the cord. Honored to have done so for her name sake and try as she might she couldn't stop the happy tears slipping down her cheeks, especially watching her daughter greet her newest granddaughter with such remarkable tenderness. As she had with Zia, Sam kissed little Hannah or Han as she was nick-named.

As with Zia, Han was bundled up in the softest swaddling cloths and handed to Garrus to hold, he was awkward at first but then he calmed his nerves. "I might was well get used to this, if I'm going to be a father." he said trying to keep his flanging voice in a low purr that he knew turian babies responded favorably to. Apparently so did asari infants.

Sam graced the turian with a warm grin she felt the same way. Sure she could field-strip a heavy gun, clean it and reassemble it under a minute. Jump feet-first into the muck from a high orbital drop and charge ahead into a hot zone, but care for a teeny-tiny baby or babies well that was…intimidating and more foreboding than the first day of N7 training.

Liara gave a sound of discomfort while her body rid itself of the placenta, nearly exhausting whatever energy her body held. _Nedh'bereth_ drew the Spectre's attention by calling out her name formally. "Samantha, take your bondmate to the cleansing pools so that she might be fresh when she cradles your daughters."

Without protest, Sam obeyed. She took Liara's weary body gently into her arms and stood up and moved through waist high waters—stained a pale lilac purple from the blood of the birthing. Liara pressed her body warmly against her wife's, grateful for the strength on offer.

"You are amazing." Sam uttered reverently as she carried precious cargo to a new cleaning pool. There she lowered Liara into the new pool, making sure she was comfortable before retrieving the conditioning soaps that exfoliated the microscales of Liara's flesh and enriching oils.

While Sam tended to Liara, _Nedh'bereth_ and Chakwas checked-over the twins while they were still held in the Trusted arms. Smiles formed on both physicians' faces: the children were…

"…How are they?" Liara called out as Sam carried her over to the warmth of a bed that was nestled in the far corner of the birthing-chambers.

"Perfectly healthy." It was Chakwas who answered.

"Their hearts?" Sam pressed. The question was not without motivation; Secura had perished not simply because of the trauma Liara had suffered at the hands the Talon assassin. Secura suffered from a heart infarction-the tiny undeveloped organ simply couldn't cope with the trauma of that day.

"They are healthy." This time it was _Nedh'bereth_ who gave the answer. "I am well aware of-the difficulty Secura suffered. I assure you both that Benezia and Hannah's hearts are hail and hearty."

Gingerly Garrus and Tali surrendered their precious charges, into eager arms now that Liara was nestled in the warmth of the 'nesting bed.' Almost as if in anticipation the twins fussed letting their own eagerness be well known. The Trusteds bent down and placed tender kisses on the babe they held. Tali even lifted her face-shield and gave a tender kiss on the tiny brow. When she looked up to see several astonished faces staring at her she smiled. A rare sight to behold to be sure. Not in Tali smiling but actually seeing it rather than hearing such an expression in the voice or body stance.

"It will be so worth it." Of course she meant the illness she would suffer for exposing herself to the shared air of the birthing chambers. However the illness would be mitigated by the fact that the birthing chambers were nearly as sanitary as a clean room without actually being one.

Hannah…the elder likewise placed a kiss on her daughter's brow—something she hadn't done since her daughter was a child. This astonished Sam to the very core of her soul. Mom was never so very open about her emotions even if it were just the two of them in earshot.

"I am _so_ proud of you." It was Mom speak for 'I love you.' This was more normal and more comfortable for both of them. 'I'm proud of you' was something Hannah could say within public without coming across as overly emotional—something to be condescended.

To this day human women still suffered such stigma if they uttered 'I love you' out loud as being too soft-hearted and weak. Yet if a man were to say those three little words: 'I love you' to his spouse and especially his children others would say he was such a good-caring -family man. Something to be praised.

"You did good Little Wing." Aethyta pressed her forehead to her daughter's. Then she did the same to Sam which shocked the Spectre even more than her mother's kiss. "Yeah, you're finally worthy of my girl." she winked one brown eye.

To Hannah the elder she said: "How about you and I toss some clothes on and then toss back a few glasses of Sarrice Ice Brandy toasting to our granddaughters?"

"Ooohh! Sounds like a date to me."

"That's the idea babe." The matriarch flashed a very flirty grin. Together the two elder women bid their farewells and started for the door. "We'll see you four tomorrow." the matriarch tossed over her shoulder.

Liara and Sam stared after the departing women opened mouthed.

"Did your moms just…" Garrus asked.

"I don't think it's our business if they are." Tali said softly.

"No." Sam shook her head vehemently. "No. No…its just…banter. Aethyta is a bartender. She's uses harmless flirtations as a tool. It sells more booze. Hell she told me once when I went to Eternity: 'What can I get you babe? And don't say sex. I just cleaned the bar.'"

"You don't know my Arda." Liara uttered. "She can be very persistent when she wants to be." She sucked in a bit of breath as she felt Han nuzzle against her breast beginning to suckle.

In her arms Zia started to try the same with Sam, who frowned. "Ah baby I'm so sorry you're barking up the wrong tree. Mamma can't…"

Tali softly pulled Garrus aside and started for the door through which Aethyta and Hannah had vanished. In her eyes were the unspoken words in the secret language that all married couples share. Oftentimes words were simply not necessary. Entire conversations could be shared (even without a mental bond) without a word being uttered'

Tali: _'This isn't for our eyes.'_

Garrus: _You're right. Besides you have to get back in your suit. Not that I mind gazing at that beautiful body of yours. But I'm not willing to risk your health._

Tali: _I'm fine!_

Garrus: _Really?_

Tali: **SNEEZE.**

Garrus: _Ah-ha_

Back in the birthing chambers _Nedh'bereth_ addressed Sam. "I can actually aid you if you wish to nurse your daughters, Samantha."

When Sam looked up with questioning eyes the elder asari began to explain.

"As _Nedh'bereth_ my biotics are particularly attuned to connect to nerve-endings they must be to ease the birthing processes should there be any complications. They also aid Ardas to connect to their daughters. However because the soul-bond I need not need to connect you to your daughters, your soul-bond has already made such connections.

"My abilities allow me to stimulate your mammary glands to lactate. I have done this several times for the mammalian females—and of course other asari so that they can share in this intimate act of motherhood."

Sam opened her mouth then closed it then opened it once more. "I…ah…need to make a rain check on that. Believe me I don't want to. I want to be that close to my daughters. But I'll be going a very dangerous mission in a few short days." She didn't add ' _I might not be coming back.'_ She didn't need to. Everyone in the room knew it.

Sam looked down to her firstborn, who was still seeking her first meal. Sam became more dismayed that she could not provide such a very simple thing for her child. All she could do was to offer a pacifying fingertip and that wasn't enough. The suckling action wasn't going to fill an empty belly.

"I understand." _Nedh'bereth_ said sympathetically which only serve to add to the guilt brooding within Sam.

'Melethril, _you haven't failed our daughters. You haven't. I'll see to Zia's needs soon. Just keep her preoccupied.'_

Sam mutely nodded trying to make herself believe in her wife's words. She looked down at the wide blue eyes of her daughter and found herself smiling.

"Mamma has to go a way for a little while. I have to go stop some monsters, but when I get back I promise I'll be able to give you what you need. Until then you'll just have to take turns with your sister. Okay? Of course, we'll get bottles ready too. Probably before then, cuz' your _Atardi_ will be helping to take care of you and your sister."

It was her imagination of course but Sam imagined she saw full understanding in her daughter's eyes.

When she looked up to Liara, she saw her bondmate's eyes filled with warm tears, her smile was equally warm.

"You are incredible." Liara uttered.

"I should be the one thanking you. And you're the remarkable one. Look at them! They are amazing!" Sam beamed in pride. And it dawned on her that today…April 11…her actual birthday Sam had completely forgotten what day it was outside that fact her daughters were making their appearance. Today she had just become a family woman.

It was a good day!


	15. Family Women

Chapter 15: Family Women

After Liara saw to Zia's needs she made it very clear she wanted to recover in her— _their_ home not at the monastery. Nedh'bereth of course arranged for transport via her bondmate Leigh'Malacar _vas_ Nos Austra.

This time when the quarian met the family she was garbed in the familiar quarian styled environmental suit. The sarong, hood and greave-coverings were of white and the light-green of sea foam—indicating her devotion to the monastery and the philosophy of Sari.

Once home the babies securely and tightly in swaddling blankets-sleeping contently were placed tenderly in the nest of the Mosses basket. Both Naneth and Arda-Mommy and Mamma stared, amazed and the tiny lives before them. Baby watching the great pastime of all new parents, how many hours did they lose to it, they could never tell you and even if they could they never cared. It wasn't waste to look at your children with fondness and absolute love.

Sam turned to her wife, pressed her forehead to Liara's and kissed her. "Get some sleep, Angel Eyes. I'll watch over you."

"What if I want you to be at my side?"

"Even if I'm not physically there, I am always there." She cupped her wife's chin with her hand, brushing the plumpness of Liara's cheek with the pad of her thumb. Liara leaned into the touch—savoring it.

Samantha's words were true, Liara could always feel the essence of her bondmate though their bond, stronger now than ever before. Tired even after her brief nap back at the monastery Liara agreed to the sensible request. "Maybe just for a little while. I'll just rest my eyes."

"For a little while." Sam repeated. After she tucked her wife into her bed, the Spectre turned to her children.

Sam just stared.

She couldn't help it. Five hours ago these two little lives weren't even here! And now she had two daughters. Two beautiful gorgeous itty-bitty tiny daughters. And it struck like a thunderclap she was now a mom! Something she never thought she'd ever become.

She just stared.

She was kneeling over the rim of what human's called a Moses Basket, her chin resting upon her folded arms watching as her daughters contentedly slumbered. Their bellies full, their little lives tranquil and above all to Sam—protected. She cut a glance over her shoulder to her wife. Despite her feeble protests before, the young mother was soundly sleeping. Of course it helped Liara relax being in their own bed, in their own apartment in one of the most secure high-rises in Nos Austra.

Sam fell in love with her wife all over again. It was like hearing those tentative hesitant words back on Therum 'Um Hello? Anyone out there? Please, I need help…' As soon as Shepard heard her her heart fluttered a bit. When she saw the trapped asari within the bubble her heart fluttered once more. Even trapped as she was Liara was the picture of dignity.

Seeing her love in labour—her body racked with birthing pain as she brought her daughters into the world, Liara was the very icon of perfection. Now exhausted, and recovering from giving birth to twins Liara was never more beautiful, never more astonishing.

Her daughters, they were equally astonishing. When she was still as child of sixteen Sam had the fortune to see a super nova while her mother was still stationed on the _Einstein_. Even that extraordinary stellar phenomena could not compare to seeing these two little lives breathing—seeing them alive.

Carefully Sam rose up, leaned over the edge of the bassinet, placed gentle kisses upon the brows of her children and padded over to her bondmate. She shirked off her trousers—as she was already walking around barefooted – a luxury she rarely afforded herself even in her own quarters aboard the _Normandy_. The rest of her clothes followed quickly, tee-shirt and bra and underwear. She wanted to feel Liara's skin next to hers even in this very limited time allotted to her.

Liara uttered a very contented sigh, a smile slipped on her purple lips before she nestled back into slumber. Sam slipped her arm under Liara's, cupped her full breast and snuggled close to her wife's naked back. Well she was almost naked. Liara wore a nursing bra to stave-off leaking issues that came with lactating.

"You are incredible." Sam whispered, breathing in her wife's scent, soaking up the warmth emanating from the bond.

Because of the events of the birthing that connection was now hyperaware, Sam had all intentions of basking it its glow while she could. She smiled as almost as instantly Shepard laid her head down, Liara cuddled up to her seeking to steal the body-warmth from her wife. True to form, Liara's feet were ice cold as they brushed up against Sam's shins. Once upon a time Sam's eyes would have snapped open at the sudden shock of cold-flesh touching her, mouthed a word of complaint but now that same shocking touch was simply home and very welcomed. She had a day maybe two to indulge in this feeling before she had to go through the Omega Four Relay.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

"How many hours that first few days did you spend staring at your 'Sammy'?" Aethyta asked tossing back her fourth Serrice-Iced Brandy. Once the glass was empty she filled it up and waited patiently for Hannah to do the same so that the snifter could be filled up once again.

The human shook her head. "I couldn't honestly tell you. A lot of them. You?"

"With Liara?" a very palpable sadness washed over the matriarch features. "Not many."

"Oh frack me….I totally forgot. I am sorry." Hannah felt the creeping sensation of a blush crawling up her neck, hit her ears and strike her tanned cheeks. As a high ranking, highly disciplined, highly decorated Naval Officer Hannah Shepard was extremely adept at schooling her expressions and not giving away her thoughts or what she was feeling in such a blatant outward display. But deep into her cups and with such pleasurable and disarming personality such as her fellow grandmother, the elder Shepard allowed her shields to lower. Considerably.

"No worries babe." a deep sigh. "I missed out so much on Liara's life but …not as much as Shi'ara."

"I'm still wrapping my head around that one."

"Which part?"

"Well all of it. You and Shi'ara are both Liara's …father?" the last word was hesitantly, spoken as if using the masculine term felt alien in the mouth of the Admiral as she referred to the Matriarch.

"Technically only I am. A trinity isn't unheard of. It's not widely practiced but hell….if you think Nezzy being with a loudmouthed uncouth matriarch turned bartender and a consort is odd, then this one will blow your mind. I have good friend…a Commander of a commando squad named Talein's Daughters: Nisira T'Kosh. She has two bondmates both male: one a turian-one a krogan."

Hannah nearly choked on her brandy. "That's…gotta be interesting."

"Imagine the threesome."

"I'm trying not to." Hannah filled her glass and drained in one and refilled it. "And it works?"

Aethyta shrugged noncommittally. "The men get into fist fights every-so-often. But yeah it works for the most part. Nis has a very big—very sturdy bed."

To this Hannah laughed boisterously. So much so she gained looks from the other patrons of Eternity Lounge.

"But for your question, Shi'ara added to the Joining but Nezzy pulled me. Liara is all mine. Shi…well to be honest _if_ she added anything to Liara, it was my girl's ability to 'sashay' those hips of hers, or trail her hand against a flat surface in a genteel—seductive way—that's Consort talents. Even without thinking about it. Bet it sure got your Sammy's attention. Of Course Nezzy could do it to. She sent plenty of tongues wagging. Though if I'm going to be honest Nezzy never bothered to sway her hips, with that rack she didn't have to."

"Me…I'm' not that eloquent. Or seductive. Only tongue I set wagging was Nezzy's."

Hannah grinned. They had switched from drinking iced brandy to something Aethyta only called a 'mystery drink.' It was a favorite amongst the patrons of the Eternity Lounge. In fact Shepard (the younger) enjoyed it quite often.

"Back to your question about baby-staring, with my other daughters: my first born Nuruodo and her sister Ar'alani—yeah I stared for hours. They are only five years apart. But hell they are almost Matriarchs. Both have daughters of their own and granddaughters—too. Little Wing is the baby of my girls. And her girls…what can I say I'm an indulgent grandfather."

A queer look flashed in Hannah's eyes, Aethyta smirked. "I see where 'Sammy' gets it. Father didn't rest well on her tongue anymore than it does yours."

"Not entirely, no." Hannah held up her hand and shook her head. "Don't bother telling me, I am an anthropomorphic bag of dicks. Be both know that isn't true from the eyeful you got at the monastery." a teasing smile.

Aethyta paused for a moment. Then looked at the tanned skinned human woman. "Your people—not humans…"

"You mean the Salish? What of them?"

"You have different words for grandparents, depending upon who side of the family they are on. So you could end up with four different names. Seems to be a little complex for a simple identifier."

A nod. "From the outside, yes, I suppose it may be. Salishan languages are known for their polysynthetic nature." Hannah sipped her drink. "Let me see if I can break it down a little more.

"In Salishan there is a complete lack of lexical distinction between nouns and verbs or rather I guess they are neutralized. You see Salishan is omnipredicative. It can be a little confusing because only the speaker's knowledge is relevant. The listener's knowledge or lack thereof is not conventionally regarded by either party in the conversation. And you haven't been raised or schooled to think of the language in that way trying to fit it in Alliance Common it really doesn't work.

"As for grandparents. I find it easier to understand. Take English…you have to state which grandmother you are talking about? Grandma Hannah or Grandma Aethyta? Well I suppose different countries will say something a little different, Nan, Nanna, Grandmum, Grandmother.

"In Salishan it's easier. Depending upon which side of the lineage the grandparent comes from. A father's parents have their own words as do the mothers. Considering Sam is the 'daddy' er _Ada_ …I am _ken-aa_ , it means father's mother. If Sammy gave birth then I'd be ỳai-yá. It means mother's mother.

" _Mére_ is mother, so if the twins are going to be polyglots then that is the Salishan word for Liara. Making my Sam to be Pére. As you may have guessed it means father.

"Sam tended to lean towards Ma especially if she was particularly emotional. When she was a toddler it was Mamma. When she got pissed at me it was _Mére,_ used in the same way most kids say _'_ **MOTHER** _!'_ Nowadays it's just Mom. But if I'm being honest I do like the sound of _Mére_."

Aethyta tasted the words and found she actually enjoyed saying them. She even managed the guttural-clicking sound that came with pronouncing the first consonant in Ỳai-yá. Though she too would be considered _ken-aa_ as she was Liara's father, not her mother. Knowing Nezzy as Aethyta had no doubt her ex would have accepted being called Ỳai-yá by her granddaughters. Nezzy was inclusive that. She was all about making bridges between the species.

"The asarian word for mother is too close to one of those words, Naneth…shortened often times to Nan I guess it's the same as the human word mommy. Just like _Ada_ is shortened from _Arda_."

Another sip of her brandy _Fuck it. This is for you Nezzy…me being all political and polite…and family. What a kick in the quads._

"Tell you what babe you teach me how to speak in Salish and I will teach you Asari…without the use of our universal translators. Besides the way you described it, your Salishan isn't that different than ancient Asarian"

Hannah snickered. "Nice thought but that will take time, I don't have a lot of furlough left."

"You're forgetting one important thing there Admiral."

"What's that?"

"Asari." Aethyta tapped her temple. "I can transfer my knowledge directly into your mind and can pull a bit from you if you let me."

Hannah though about it then shook her head. "Sorry but I got a lot of highly sensitive things rolling around in my head, highly confidential… I can't. No matter how intrigued I am about linking minds."

"Not looking for anything in the confidential arena, babe. I may not be a commando but my mother was. I know how it is. Just think everything you know about the Salish. I won't go any further than that.

"We both know Little Wing did it for your Sammy when she was trying to help your kid sort out all those fracking visions from the beacons. Not to mention the cipher and all the other prothean shit that tried to scramble Sam's mind. Little Wing didn't go further than Sam allowed her and I'm a hell of a lot more experienced than she. Besides the Kid never linked minds outside her mother or _Erui- beor Shiala_ , she would have been woozy after such a connection to an alien mind for the first couple of times. I wont' be.

"If my grandkids are half Salish, don't you think I should know a thing or two about it? And you can stand to know a bit more about asari."

Once more the Admiral thought about the offer and slowly nodded her head. "Not here."

"Of course not. Too public, even the staff canteen or strippers dressing room is far too public. I got a place far more private."

Hannah shared the same lopsided smirk her daughter held. "You know if this is a way to get me alone in a hotel room… this is a very unique pick-up line."

"Trust me babe. If I offered you a pick-up line to get into your pants I won't have to try so hard. Oh and lesson one. To the grandkids. I'm _Atardi_ or _Atar_ for their little mouths."

"I like it. _Atar._ Sounds good. You know while we're at it, not that'll come up but I know our grandkids are one-eighth krogan. On top of that I think Sammy adopted a krogan son, that young one with the blue eyes calling himself Grunt. He follows her around like a varren whelp."

"Yeah something like that, Sam's his Battlemaster. From what Little Wing told me, Sam was the one that opened his tank, and accompanied him on his Rites of Passage—leader of his Krant. Hell, they killed a thresher maw on foot. Hell of a feat.

"Then there's old 'Uncle Wrex.'. So…ch'yah…hic….I think I could stand to learn a few things about that side of the family as well. Not the headbutting or bloodrage stuff. I know about that."

"Well aint that a kick in the quads!" Aethyta grinned and draped her arm over Hannah's shoulders. "Like I said I've got a place." a coy smile, "in Azura."

"I always wondered about that hotel." Hannah said trying to walk straight but failing. "What kind of place is it? From what I heard it's a little racy."

Aethyta smiled—shark like. And quite literally stole Liara's explanation. "It is…more liberal than you might be accustomed to, Admiral. Azura is slang on Nos Austra for a certain part of the asari body."

"Where?" Hannah turned to her escort. Was it her or was Aethyta suddenly sporting pink make-up and looking a hell of a lot younger? What in the hell was in that last 'mystery drink' anyway?

"In the lower reaches near the bottom."

"I meant…hic….where on the asari body."

The grin went super nova. Like _Ada_ like _Rél_ : "So did I."

For the second time that night, Admiral Hannah Secura Shepard blushed.

By now Hannah was leaning on Aethyta to gain some semblance of balance. Whatever was in that 'Mystery Drink'….was some seriously-strong-shit. She never recalled ever 'listing' so terribly to port before or starboard for that matter. If she were on a ship the Admiral would have thought that artificial gravity stabilizers were offline. But as it were she was planetside and simply drunk and in the company of a very flirtatious Matriarch.

Here's to being family women! Here's to being a grandmother….no not mere grandmothers. They were _Atar_ and K _en-aa!_

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

Liara rose from her nap to find her children and her bondmate still slumbering. There was a strange ghost of a smile on Samantha's bow-shaped lips. It suddenly occurred to the prothean expert that her wife's expression was due to the fact she was content. At peace. It was not something that was often found on the Spectre. Constantly plagued by obligations as a Spectre, an Alliance officer, the forerunner of trying to gain allies, powers, and resources for the war that to come, left Samantha with precious few moments which she could truly call her own.

The Reapers.

In the next few days Samantha was going to go through the Omega Four Relay to bring the battle to the Collector's own doorstep, in order to save countless human lives that would never know they owned their continued existence to a small crew aboard a captured frigate. Or to the Commander who would never give up, never stop, and never surrender her will to the Reapers even if it killed her in order to stop them

Blue eyes welled with tears worry, adoration and fear. She leaned over, pressed her lips to Samantha's forehead. "I gave you a reason to come back to me." She uttered in whisper that barely crossed the line between inaudible and audible. Blue fingers trailed along the forelock of her wife's thick dark locks. The smile on ruby lips broadened but yet Samantha did not waken. Rarely did the Commander sleep so well or so deeply. Liara knew her beloved was plagued by nightmares—horrible terrible nightmares-birthed from the visions of the cipher, the beacons and the Reapers themselves. It left Liara with a deep sense of sorrow for her Samantha even before they became a couple back on the _Normandy_ SR1.

The only time Samantha slept soundly was when she heard the sound of her wife's heartbeat. And thus Liara had used a medical omni tool to record the sound of her own heartbeat and downloaded it into micro-OSDs which were counseled in ear-buds. A second recording was made that contained the heartbeats of their children whilst still in the womb.

There was a slight mewling murmur from the bassinet at the side of the bed. Instinctively Liara rolled over to check on her daughters to find them both still soundly sleeping. Scooting closer to the edge of the bed so that she might physically reach her children she reached over and placed tender fingers simultaneously on their sculpted crests. They did not stir but their minds reacted reaching for the ever familiar presence of Liara's mind as it had always touched them while they were in the deep warmth and security of the womb.

' _Nan is here my sweet ones, my Little Squirrels. Mamma is too. She so longed to see you, to meet you both. Know our love for you is greater than the great expanse of the Void.'_ the words were not spoken but sent into their newborns minds—into their souls.

It was a promise Liara had made to herself that she would always send them—speak them to her daughters. Samantha was a human Spectre, time and circumstance may not be something the great Commander could afford for both could so very easily and crawly cruelly be snatched away from Samantha. Their children may grow up without ever truly knowing their Ada—Mamma, but for Liara's vow. She had long ago resolved the Squirrels would know Samantha's voice and because of the gestalt they would know some semblance of her thoughts when she was not present. They would see her holo-pics and if the worst should come they would know her through the VI Liara had commissioned. But those measures would not be necessary, Liara willed it so, demanded it be so, Samantha would return from the Omega Four Relay to her and to their girls.

"I will." Samantha muttered softly. Her arms coiled around her wife's body cuddling her from behind, her legs on either side of Liara's so that she was astride. "I will always come back to you." Sam rested her chin on Liara's bare shoulder and snuck in a swift peck on a soft scaled cheek. And for a moment just the moment they were simply family women.

Liara shifted in the arms that held her. "Come, I want a shower. Join me."

Sam was on her feet almost immediately. "Absolutely." A faulted step as she looked to her daughters. "We shouldn't leave them alone."

Liara's bemused smile held an air of chiding knowledge. "They won't be. The Nanny-VI is active _Melethril._ Any movement; the slightest shift in breathing that indicates the girls are awake it will alert us."

Of course! She had all but forgotten about that handy little drone. The Nanny-VI was something Sam had bought when they were expecting Secura. Like everything else that was once intended for their firstborn the VI was placed in storage after that tragic day. When Benezia was first expected Liara had everything taken from storage and restored. When Liara discovered she was going to have twins she had everything doubled. Well almost everything. Something didn't need doubling: such as the Moses basket. Unlike other races that had multiple births asari twins loathed to be separated as newborns. They would become fussy; unable to sleep properly or even feed from their mothers. It was due of course to the neuro-link they share with another whilst within the womb.

Even as asari twins grew into maidenhood and their later stages twins shard a very unique bond, very strong bond though not as close as a soul-bond but strong nonetheless. And there was always a very deep empathic connection. Even less than a day old that connection was very evident in the Squirrels.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

The crew of the _Normandy_ spent the unexpected down time doing various entertaining activities: Zaeed, Jack and Grunt had fun at one of the Armax Arsenal Arenas Miranda migrated towards Azure Hotel to have a spa day. Kasumi and Joker spent their time at the casinos: one trying to play the game the other cheating it. As for Mordin he enjoyed his down time at many of the vast libraries Nos Astra provided: there was much research he dearly decided to recheck and reevaluate with his own findings—on several levels. One such aspect was to ensure the perfect conception of a turian /quarian hybrids.

Samara had decided to venture to the Temple of Athame and meditate upon the 5000 sutras of the Justicar Code

Having mothered three children she knew this time was critical for mothers and bonded Arda. Samara knew from personal experience what it was to birth twins: her youngest daughters: Falere and Rila. Like their sister however the girls were ardat yakshi but unlike Morinth they had consented to live out their lives in section within the Monastery on Lesuss.

Samara knelt before the altar of the goddess; her prayers this day were for new mothers and their new babes. Of course a fraction of her mind ventured to the celebrations she and her bondmate celebrated with their daughters' births

Traditionally every new mother celebrates the birth of her child with a feast. Indeed such a celebration was called _'Mereth -Yestanesse_ ' or feast of the firstborn. Of course any daughter after was also celebrated but the firstborn was always a monumental milestone for any matron celebrating the birth of her first daughter.

Samara's cheeks burned with remorse as she recalledMirala's _Mereth-Yestanesse._ How happy she and her bondmate Ysanne were. Like Samara Ysanne once belonged to a merc guild. They ran together on missions, smuggling jobs, even assassinations, dancing, sleeping around with other mercs, during that time they started exploring their deeper feelings for one another. Ysanne got out when a mission went bad. Samara got out herself after she turned on her crew during a transport mission, she freed the slaves.

It wasn't until she joined an amateur Skyball League that she met Ysanne once more. They settled down, bought a four bedroom house in Serrice and started a family. First came Mirala, five years later Falere and Rila.

Mirala… She was: smart, bold, fearless…full of smiles and 'look at me _Naneth_! Look what I can do Ada!' when she was still a toddler and her sisters newly born Mirala had boldly proclaimed: 'I'm going to be a Commando, _Naneth_! I will make sure Thessia is always safe! I'll protect Falere and Rila.'

In that private alcove of the monastery the Justicar who saw only in black and white allowed the family woman buried deep within herself five private moments of reflective remorse: One for when her daughters diagnosed as ardat-yakshi and were forced to live in seclusion on Larissa. One for Ysanne who died in a senseless skycar accident coming home from practice with the team not long after the twins turned twenty. One for when Mirala became Morinth, another for the moment Samara took the Oath of Solitude and had to say goodbye to her two remaining daughters. The last was when Commander Shepard gave Morinth a true burial.

Now was not the time for remorse. Now was the time for rejoicing in the celebration of new life. Lives that Shepard may never see again. The Commander knew in the marrow of her bones as they all did and accepted they may well never return from this suicide mission. What little time the Commander had with her family was precious and to be treasured.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

"Notice something Angel Eyes?" Sam said coming out the bathroom a towel draped over her head as she rubbed dry her hair."

Liara was noticing something alright; she was enjoying the view of her semi-nude bondmate padding around the apartment. She was wearing only her boxer shorts, the towel once used was draped over Sam's shoulders, the ends long enough covered the tips of her breasts.

Liara smiled and handed her lover one of her own tee-shirts as she was wearing Sam's N7 strappy. "What is it you wish for me to notice?"

"We have a distinct lack of grandparents?"

"Perhaps they decided to give us the day. Just the four of us."

"Yeah probably. Your Ada maybe an old hat at being a grandmother, but Mom, this is her first go around. After today she's back on duty." Sam shirked on the tee-shirt, her head popping out from the neck-hole, mussing up her already unruly hair even further.

"Same as you. You leave tomorrow don't you?"

The Spectre took three steps closer to her wife and kissed her. She didn't give an answer straight off but looked down at her daughters who were only now wakening. "I have to." her hand reached down and touched each of her daughter's crests. "Now more than ever. Li, on Horizon we managed only to save half the population, a lot of families were taken." She looked to her daughters. "A lot of families destroyed." She looked down at the daughters. "I can't let that happen. We both know what that loss, Li.. I have to stop the Collectors from taking more people."

Liara placed her hand over her wife's "Always the hero."

"Ughsh…did you have to use the H-word?" Sam looked disgusted. "Heroes are over-inflated egoists. I just do my job: a Spectre and an Alliance officer."

" _Melethril_ , that what makes you the hero barring the over-inflated ego. People see you as a hero, brave, self-sacrificing, facing danger head on and overcoming impossible odds. Fighting for those who can not fight for themselves. Ask those on Eden Prime, Elysium or Terra Nova or even the Citadel. And how many others owe you their lives for your actions?"

"What a terrible legacy to leave our girls." Sam muttered.

"You won't be leaving them. Or me" Liara said sternly. "You _will_ be returning to us. You already made that vow."

"Just saying love, huge legacies you and I both know what that is to be apart of. We're both defined by our parents' legacies. And like it or not theirs will to." she nodded towards the bassinet.

"Then let it be a living legacy." Liara said firmly. "Did you not promise marriage, old age and a lot of little blue children?"

"We nailed as the first one, got a good head-start on the last one as for the middle well, we'll work on that one."

The mewling sounds from Han and Zia drew their attention away from their current distraction to their daughters' immediate needs. A purely domestic moment in the chaos that was the galaxy at war.

"So how are our granddaughters faring?" Hannah Shepard asked as she came into the living room of Liara's apartment followed closely by Aethyta who let her in. She approached her daughter expecting to be allowed to cradle her namesake.

It took a moment for Sam to realize that her mother was speaking in Asarian.

"Mom?" Her face contorted in a puzzled expression even as she passed her daughter over.

"A little cultural exchange." Aethyta explained yet her words were spoken in Salishan.

Liara turned to her wife and smiled. "Knowledge transfer. Not unlike what we did my love."

"I sorta hope it was very unlike what we did." Sam smirked.

"Oooh did you share a knowledge bond post coitus?"

"Goddess, Ada! Really!" Liara scolded.

To this the elder asari chuckled throatily. "Yeah Han, it was after they had sex."

"Ali, you tease our girls relentlessly." Hannah chided even as she softly rubbed the soft crest of her granddaughter. The scales so very tiny reminded the Admiral of the soft velvet of a horse's muzzle.

"It's my privilege. Yours too Han, look how they squirm."

"I'll leave the teasing to you Ali; I'm content on spoiling my granddaughters."

Sam did a double take. This was not her mother who expected her orders to be carried out without question or hesitation. It had always been thus, every since Sam could recall. At two Hannah had her daughter running a miniaturized obstacle course. At four she could strip down, clean and reassemble a Carnifax pistol. At six she was leaping from shuttles with parachutes. Of course she did this with a handful of other officer's children.

Of course there were the quiet moments, the soft moments when Hannah would tuck her child into bed 'reading' their made-up stories about Captain Sam and her fearless crew aboard her starship. Those stories became more frequent the more Sam suffered her headaches from the surge of her biotic powers manifesting.

Hannah looked from one granddaughter to the next. At least they will be spared the suffering their _Pére_ went though. It was something Hannah would never forgive herself for—for not getting her daughter implanted earlier. Thirteen was far too late…

Perhaps by instinct Sam knew what was running through her mother's mind she placed a tender hand on her shoulder. "Ma… _Mére_ it's okay. I think the regs change once you get to be a _Ken-aa_." She leaned closer and whispered for her mother's ears alone. " _Mére_ watch over my daughters and my wife if the mission past the relay doesn't end with a _Normandy_ victory."

"You have my word, Sammy." This was an Admiral's voice that answered; she long knew the truth that missions could end in death. The promise her child asked of her now was the same promise she asked of David Anderson. The man was still keeping to that promise. In a way he was her Trusted the same as Garrus Vakarian was the Trusted of Sam. "But you'll be coming back; after all you made a promise to your family did you not?"

Sam nodded. "Many times."

"Come, before tomorrow's goodbyes there is a feast for today." Aethyta said. "I missed out on yours Kiddo; I want to enjoy my granddaughters' _Mereth-Yestanesse_."

The Matriarch led the way into the kitchen and started to decant many of the food stuffs she and Hannah had purchased. Both previously admitting to one another that neither one of them had any culinary skill to speak of that didn't involve opening an MRE pack and heating it up. Too many years on a starship for one and too many years not giving a damn to learn for the other.

"You two take a seat the old ladies will take care of things." Hannah commanded. She handed her namesake back to her Mamma, then took Zia into her arms kissed her brow. The tiny hand wrapped around her grandmother's finger and held it tightly.

"Oh that's a grip, you'll make a good soldier…maybe the first asari N7….hum? What do you think Sammy?"

"I think the red and black will look good on her. Even the dress blues." Sam grinned touching Zia's tiny face.

Aethyta and Liara exchanged a look. "Red and black ehe? Not commando leathers?" came the Matriarch's challenge.

"Well…she is half human." Sam shrugged.

"And what of our other daughter?"

"A great scholar like her Mom." Sam caressed the plump cheek of the babe in her arms. "Or an artist or a musician or…" she looked to her 'father'-in –law "a bar tender.' Same as Zia they can choose to be whatever they want to be. Right now all they have to be is healthy and alive. I'm content with that. And more content when I save them and their mother from the Reapers.

"Speaking of saving, once you return from your little jaunt beyond the Omega Four Relay how long do you intend on staying with your new family." Aethyta challenged not unkindly.

"As long as I can." an honest answer. "Officially I'm not actually a part of the Alliance Military at all. As a Spectre well I think the Council will be happy to see me take some down time with the family. But there will be an inquest. And I don't know how long that will take."

"An inquest?" Liara frowned. "Surely they will not dare to persecute you for doing the right thing."

Sam turned to her wife. "If we hadn't succeeded in stopping Saren and were still alive I would have been court marshaled for stealing the Normandy."

"You are a Spectre, you can not be held to account by the laws of the Alliance Military, the fact they took your ship away in the first place was a criminal act!" Liara all but snapped. In her arms Zia fussed a second latter so did Hannah.

"Li, it was set up from the beginning we both know that the Council's words to Udina him impounding the _Normandy_ all of it. I'm pretty much expecting the same kind of shit after we get back."

Liara cradled her child to her breast trying to calm the babe as did Sam

"How much trouble are you expecting." Hannah became serious.

"A lot. TIMmy has been spreading rumors about defecting because the Council and the Alliance both refuse to do anything about the colony attacks and the Reapers. They've made claims that because Cerberus offered me a ship…one I stole but TIMmy left that part out. And it will be equally forgotten that the Council took advantage of this little supposed partnership to discover where TIMmy was hiding out. It will also be conveniently forgotten that solid Intel I passed to the Alliance has allowed them to strike several of Cerberus bases of operation.

"TIM made a thorough job painting me the traitor. There are some that will believe me disgraced. Ash proved that back on Horizon."

"Sam, Hackett, me and Anderson hell even Karin will not allow a white-wash and toss you under the bus."

"I may no longer serve the Matriarchy but I have more than a few ears willing to turn their attention to me and lend their voices if I but ask them. Railroading you won't happen. It's good to be married into a propionate family. One of the first families of Thessia." At Liara's grimace Aethyta amended her comment. "Liara is still a daughter of Thessia and so are her newborns, as her recognized bondmate you have Thessian rights."

"I wish it was going to be that easy but I don't think it will be. There will be comparisons to Saren. Even the rumors of me joining with Cerberus marks me as having gone rogue just like he did." She looked to her wife.

"And you have a T'Soni at your side who has practiced shady dealings."

"You even threatened to flay someone with your mind or challenged to send an asari commando unit after them. Yeah that won't look good." Aethyta admitted.

"It also won't look good considering my crew. Two Cerberus defectors, a known and ruthless bounty hunter, the best thief in the galaxy though she is not the most famous, a former agent of the salarian STG who well is not favored by Dalatrasses any more. If he were he wouldn't have been living out his days on Omega running a free clinic. I also have a drell assassin who's going to die from an incurable disease. And I have two souls whose dedication and loyalty to me and mine is unshakable." Sam paused-cleared her throat. "I also have an extremely advanced warship whose design was stolen by the very organization outlawed in all Council Space and even associating wit them is treason. And…it's….has a highly advanced AI installed." a puff of air "And I have a geth."

"WHAT!" both elder women barked out in astonishment.

The children started and began to whine.

"Sam…what were you thinking. Were you thinking?" Hannah was all fire. "That is the single most stupid thing you have ever done!"

Sam for her part was trying to sooth her daughter as much as Liara was little Zia.

"You. Have. An. Active. Geth. Seriously?" Aethyta growled. "Oh yeah there is no stopping anyone comparing you that nut-job bastard Saren now."

"Can we not shout," Liara commanded attention, thought that proved to be a challenge as she had to raise her voice over the babies' wails.

The adults in the room grew silent as both mothers desperately tried to sooth their children. After half an hour had past the babies fears were soothed, tears tried and they stilled. Both grandparents had the decency to looked chagrinned.

"No more shouting." Liara demanded—insuring her voice was low and measured. They came out almost as a hiss. "This is supposed to be a celebratory time." she said with a growl. "My daughters are barely a day old and my bondmate is going on a mission she may never come back from. These last hours maybe the last we have as a true family. I will not have it ruined by drama that can not be changed with shouts. Or harsh words. Or angry rants. Or questions. I have every intention of enjoying my family while it is here! That number can be reduced by two if you two cannot control yourselves, I do not care if you are admirals or matriarchs, not on this day."

Both elder women looked to one another then back to their daughters.

"Hey Kiddo…." Aethyta touched her daughter's shoulder. Her tone very much time soft, pliant—apologetic. "Little Wing, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset your daughters or the _Mereth-Yestanesse_."

"Sammy…Liara…" The Admiral went to her grandchildren and touched each forehead. "You're right this is supposed to be a happy celebration." She looked at all the containers and plates that had food already upon them. "There's a lot of food to dig into and this tastes a lot better than the grub they serve in mess."

Sam shifted little Hannah in her arm and draped the other around her mother. "Ma you do realize that even though this isn't Thessia, Nos Austra is an asari world."

"Is that why I see a lot of blue women around? I wondered about that. "

Sam rolled her eyes the only way a daughter could before their mothers. "What I mean is that all the food with have eezo in it. And you're the only non-Biotic here; the food might taste a little weird to you."

"I know, Honey. Did you forget your wedding feast? I was there for it. I think I can handle eating a bit of eezo."

"Well babe, you drank plenty of it earlier today toasting our grandchildren." Aethyta chuckled which in turn earned warm soft laugh from the Admiral. It was soft in a way Sam had not heard in a long time coming from her mother. The only other time she heard her mother thus was when Admiral Hackett came calling.

Sam grinned and shared a knowing look with her wife. Both wondered if their parents had shared more than bottles of brandy and a knowledge bond. At the moment neither cared if their mother and Ada shard a bed—if they decided to share a moment of pleasure then so be it. such moments in times to come will be few indeed.

Moments like this when they were all just family women enjoying the splendor of new life.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ ME

AN1: Salishan language resources found at

 _Mére =_ mother

 _Ken-aa – mother's father_

 _Pére = father_

 _Yai-yá. = mother's mother_

 **AN2: Asarian Words**

 _erui- beor =_ First Disciple

 _Atardi_ = more formal Grand Sire equivalent to grandfather

 _Atar = Grandpa,_ child's terminology

 _Idhren'Hu_ ' _rien_ of the Matriarchy = Grand High Priestess (The highest rank a priestess can achieve in the order of Athame and Sari)

 _Nedh'bereth_ = Matron Midwife (priestess who observes both the traditions of Athame and Sari. Their minds are carefully attuned to ease new lives from the safety and warmth of the womb into the chaos of the world)

 _Melethril = beloved_

Ada = daddy

Adar = Father / sire / other parent

Naneth = mother

Nan = mommy

rél = daughter

nún = birth

tatya = second

gwanún = twins

 _Mereth-Yestanesse_ = feast of the firstborn

A3: For Sam's early live got the idea of the from some youtube vid I saw about a dad building an obstacle course for his 2 year old daughter who was able to run it extremely well including tires climbing through and hopping form tiny ones one to the other like a football player, jumping monkey bars and climbing a rock-wall and a slight bit of free climbing. The other part was taken from yes Halo's Spartan training


	16. A House Devided

Chapter 16: A House Divided

Sam rose from the bed; it was early yet only Oh-four-hundred. It had been a long night but unlike most long nights for Sam this time it was night of wonder and joy. After dinner, a round of picture taking and baby staring the elder women: Hannah and Althea decided to give their daughters time alone with their own daughters. The first day was critical to daughter mother bonding. The minds of the newborn were so very impressionable, they needed to connect to their mother, and sire if applicable. Even in slumber the infant mind or in this case minds sought a connection just as they had within the womb.

In that quiet time between breast feedings, first time baths, diapering and simply being first time moms, the lovers floated in the euphoria of each other's company. Liara's body still tender, the two postponed full physical lovemaking but allowed their minds to connect and drift further and deeper into one another than had ever previously gone before.

It was a gift Liara said shared only between the most trusted of friends or…bondmates. Memories, emotions, empathic passionate love-making flared to life in those shared moments of the Joining. The gestalt of the soul bond made it all that more intense. More powerful. And far more intimate than even the physicality of actual lovemaking. When Liara pulled back from the Joining both lovers felt as if they had indeed had a night of unfettered love-making, even their bodies ached as if they had.

Liara was asleep so were the girls. The house was silent. Once more Sam found herself staring at her beautiful wife, at her daughters. When she made to move off the bed she felt Liara's hand on her shoulder.

"Did you not sleep well _Melethril?"_

Sam turned her head to her wife. "Very well. Probably the last good night's sleep I will have in a very long time. That Joining…was incredible." She leaned over and kissed Liara's blue-purple lips.

"It felt like another gestalt. Certainly deeper than our first Joining." Liara's azure cheeks flushed with her words. Both moments in the young mother's mind flared brightly in her mind as well as sweet remembrance of loosing her virginity to her lover.

"I know what you meant, Angel Eyes." Sam smiled. "But our night before Ilos…will always be my favorite time." a sheepish smile.

"Indeed." Liara's fingers traced over the scars that lined Samantha's body the deepest one running from collarbone to hip, given to her when the Saren-husk tried and quite nearly did eviscerate Samantha during that last battle on the Citadel. It was that grievous wound which had nearly taken Samantha away from Liara and their new life together. "Its when I knew I fell in love with the ship's captain."

"I always wanted to go for round two…" Sam playfully raised her eyebrows up and down.

"Saammantha." Liara drawled as she has their first time, though this time her cheek did not color a deeper teal. She leaned over and kissed her bondmate with all the passion within her heart and the blessed memory of their first time together.

"I don't know is it just me but was this Joining even if not physical seemed some how deeper." Sam said after she gained her breath and composure. Her voice a husky whisper.

"It was. We've been apart for so long…I was desperate to feel your touch again."

Saren…her Mother, the Reapers, the geth…all of it., and yet if it hadn't been for those moments of harried battle, torments Liara would never have met the love of her life or now have two gorgeous daughters.

"Me too Angel eyes." Sam traces the 'eyebrow' markings on Liara delicate face. It always fascinated why Liara chose to tattoo them on until her wife told her that human eyebrows were so very expressive she wanted to imitate them, hence the markings.

Blue eyes stared into blue eyes. Liara's ever busy mind started to ponder what was to come next. Once Samantha left for the relay, Liara knew she had to pull all the resources she had as an information broker to insure the Alliance and the Citadel Council did not sacrifice her wife because of the inconvenience of Samantha Shepard being right yet again. Of course some of the entanglements Samantha had brought upon herself. If Liara could gain a better grasp upon the reasons and logic behind some of those decisions she could better equip herself for the political shit-storm that was going to hit the proverbial fan as her human might have said.

"Samantha, about that geth you have, I know you have your reasons and I'm sure Tali would never have agreed to it, but was it complicit to your demands only because it was _you_ who gave the order? And I have to ask whatever one else will be asking if they haven't already-why did you save it?"

"It spoke. Called me out by name. It carries a lot of knowledge about the Reapers. I need that knowledge. And strange as it sounds, I think Legion maybe be the key to stop this aggression between quarian and geth. If they would just open up a dialog." Sam started. "Did you know that according to Legion the geth are just custodians of Rynock? They haven't taken over the planet. They haven't seized any settlements or any great metropolitan centers, or resources. All this time they are in a holding pattern, save the heretics that followed Saren because of the promises of the Reapers.

"I know what will be said about me, about taking a geth on my ship; much less let it be part of my crew. I know what how they will look at me, hell even when she knew about it Ash was ready to believe the rhetoric and hype that TIMmy spun, she considers me a traitor. She named me so back on Horizon. All anyone else will see, because that is all they are seeing right now is that I took Cerberus resources, their ship and even some of their personnel. They will say I am just like Saren or worse.

"Is Ash is so willing to think I lost it, that I am disgraced. That's all on TIM. All of it. He wanted to destroy my credibility, to remake me—resurrect me in his image like some latter-day Lazarus.

"Li, all my life my mother told me to outthink my opponents. That my mind is the best weapon I possess. Use an enemy's weapons and knowledge against them are solid tactics. Same thing I learned as an N7. If your back is against the wall, if you can't beat it—use it. That is what I am doing."

Liara said. "Of course I understand my love but will your military accept it?"

"Human militaries have been using spies, double agents all the time. I might have to remind them of that when the time comes. But once I reveal everything I've learned they'll see the value of harvesting that kind of information that never would have been able to be gained otherwise. We need every advantage. Everyone we can gain when the Reapers come."

Liara wrapped her arms around her bondmate. "You are right they will, save perhaps our parents, compare you to Saren, a questionable crew save for Justicar Samara, a very powerful warship equipped with an AI, a geth crewmember and a criminal origination. They will seek to disgrace you."

"I know."

"I won't let that happen."

"I know."

Sam turned around cradled her wife to her and kissed her with all she was worth, every fiber of her soul, every spark of her love. "I have to go." she uttered.

This time it was Liara that answered. "I know."

Sam rose from the bed and began to dress—she reached for her N7 shirt paused and went for Liara's undershirt instead, just as she had the day before. She was deliberately taking her time. Liara knew from her experiences on the _Normandy_ and the _Victory_ that her bondmate could get fully dressed and kitted out in less than a minute if she had too.

When she was fully dressed, groomed and ready to leave she took Benezia from her cradle held her for a full minute, basking in the link Liara generated. She kissed her forehead and laid her down then she did the same to Hannah.

"Mamma, loves you both my Little Squirrels more than anything in this galaxy. I am so very proud of you, both." Silently Sam turned to her wife and held her for what seemed to be an eternity.

"Samantha, you mean everything to me. To us." Liara managed through a thickening throat. It had become so tight it almost hurt to breathe let alone speak. Liara was astonished she managed words at all. She might have doubted she had said them at all if not for the moment of pain caused by her throat, tongue and lips forming the words.

Another kiss, softer this time as was the hand that caressed the tanned cheek. Liara reveled in the small imperfections the scars and callouses that shaped her wife's hand. A hand as familiar to her as was her own.

"I love you, Liara. I have always loved you. You are my heart's very breath." Willing herself not weep Commander Samantha Secura Shepard of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel turned and left the bedroom—then the apartment—then Nos Austra. If she lingered any longer, if she looked behind her that one last time, Sam might find it almost impossible return to duty, which was something the Commander could never permit. Not in herself, not in her crew.

Alone in the bedroom with her daughters still slumbering, Liara pulled her legs up to her chest, folded her arms around her calves and wept the tears her wife could not allow. She prayed hard and long until her head ached as deeply as her soul and heart that this was not the last time she saw her beloved—her soul's ease.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

Shepard barely set a foot upon the deck of the _Normandy_ when Kelly Chamber's voice over the ship's comms. *Welcome aboard Commander and may I add congratulations.*

"Thank you, Kelly." the smile that graced her slightly tanned face was bitter sweet. She stood near her personal monitor then turned to her yeoman, "Kelly recall all personnel, I want to be off planet in ten."

"Aye-aye Commander."

In the same moment Kelly activated her comms system, Shepard hit the ship's intercom, "Joker prep for take-off, I'm feeding the new coordinates to a nav-point now." Shepard said.

The geth station was in the Terminus system placed between the stars where no organics had cause to look. Of course Shepard had been curious as to why the Heretics built stations outside geth territory in the first place. When this question was put to Legion he answered that the heretics sought improvement from the Old Machines. In exchange they help them attack organics. The rest of the geth consensus condemned these judgments.

The mission parameters: the geth will disrupt their network. Prevent the station's defenses from focusing on the assault team. The Reaper data core was physically isolated from the network. Legion stated that it would need to be escorted to access and destroy the data.

The defenses were negligible in space. Within however was another story. Mobile platforms of various configurations, and non-sentient defense turrets were abundant. Shepard just prayed there would be none of those skulking: sappers, stalkers, or ghosts. She hated those things with a passion. They were the only geth capable of interfering with biotic implants.

Back when she was fighting Saren and his geth …she guessed they should be reclassified as heretics if her weapons overheated she could use her biotics to crush her enemies. But with the stealth forces they dampened weapons, tech and biotics. Blasted fucking things.

During her questioning of Legion about the opposition Shepard had asked of course how many geth should they expect?

The answer surprised her that there may be billions of individual programs. Fortunately, most will be uploaded to the central computer. Shepard winced at that she kept forgetting that the mobile platforms were not individual geth. Geth were software, not hardware. Tali, Legion and even EDI repeatedly told the Spectre this but for a soldier it was hard not to see the platforms as individual enemy forces rather than a transport for the thousands of programs the clanker shell moved around.

According to Legion, only a few mobile platforms were maintained at any time. Others were manufactured when needed.

Manufactured… geth platforms are manufactured as needed. Goddess any war with them would be futile. how many geth were needed to make them…'smart AI' Only a hundred, maybe a thousand? And how many platforms can be manufactured within an hour? A day? How many in a week?

Goddess the guy might be an ass but please—please let Admiral Koris vas Quib Quib talk sense into the Admiralty and not have the Migrant Fleet go to war with the geth. The quarians would lose— _everything_.

Even still, Shepard vowed she would not allow the heretics to brainwash the rest of his race, especially not to worship the Reapers. She gave her word on that.

Seven minutes latter the _Normandy_ had her full crew onboard, three minutes after that the ship was on its way to Phoenix Massing. Once it entered the nebula, she would navigate -to the Sea of Storms. Even by Mass Relays it would take time to reach their destination. Legion wasn't kidding when it said the station was between stars in a place no organic would seek it out or even think of going.

As always Shepard learned all she could about a drop site if at all possible. She liked knowing what she was getting into and sometimes the history of a place gave more Intel than current specs. A soft smile graced the Spectres lips, she and Liara were indeed a perfect match.

She had called up Tali to get more information on the station. The galaxy map called up an enlargement of the station.

"What can you tell me about the station?"

Tali looked at the construct. "Legion can tell you more, Commander."

"He did now I want to know what you know."

"Heretic Station was once called Haratar by my people; the space station was stripped of its useful technology when the Migrant Fleet had to leave the Perseus Veil. What was left was little more than a cold metal superstructure." Tali explained.

"Commander," EDI interjected. "Excuse the interruption but the station was removed from the star charts in 2050 CE."

"Sounds familiar." Shepard scoffed. "Just like losing the Mu Relay….okay EDI scan it, but make sure you don't wake the neighbours. What can you tell me."

"One moment. Scans indicate the station was reconstructed and upgraded in a massive effort that took at least a Citadel Standard decade, implying that they may have been geth outside the Veil before their attack on Eden Prime. Needing little but a fuel source, it could have been hidden here for much longer without attracting the attention from the barren worlds around Tassrah or the clueless elcor in the Salahiel system."

"Not that surprising." Tali said. "Elcor don't like space travel overmuch."

Shepard remained silent; she simply studied the space station. As a spacer kid she grew up mostly on starships but there were a few times she had lived on space stations. Mostly when she was younger—still in the single digits.

"What else can you tell me?"

"Heretic Station is capable of broadcasting vast distances through tight beam projection. Approximately 6.6 million copies of geth software are stored in the station, the majority of which are kept bodiless in servers and downloaded to legged platforms when needed."

"Legion told me as much. What else?"

"The station's "population" of legged platforms in approximately 2.4 million." Tali looked to Shepard, "Let us hope they are all dormant as Legion promises."

"Cha'yah no kidding. Tali gear up, you're coming with us. I want somebody who knows the geth inside and out and who I trust without hesitation or question."

"You got it Shepard." Tali smiled behind the mask, you had to be adept at quarian body language to see it, and you could almost certainly hear it. You could hear the pride as well. Pride of the devotion and belief of her captain in her. It meant everything to Tali.

By the time Tali and Legion joined Shaped on the bridge the Spectre was fully kitted out and waiting from them. She turned her head ever so slightly over her shoulder to acknowledge their approach but said nothing else.

Joker eased up on the approach, just outside visual range. He turned to Legion, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"You know it's just our heat emissions that are hidden, right? They can look out a window and see us coming."

Without missing a beat the geth returned with: "Windows are a structural weakness. Geth do not use them. Approach the hull at these coordinates." It turned and used the navigator's station to transmit the coordinates directly to the helm. "Access achieved you may proceed."

With its back turned away from the helm it didn't see Joker mocking it while mining 'Robby the Robot' With a chastising look from Shepard, even fully masked behind her helm, Joker held up his hands in surrender and went back to piloting the ship—expertly docking the _Normandy_ to where Legion directed.

ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME~ME

Getting into the station from the airlock was relatively easy; Legion simply used the blowtorch extension of his platforms inborn omni tool. As soon as it landed feet on the stations deck Legion turned its head towards Shepard and Tali.

"Alert. This facility has little air or gravity. Geth require neither."

Shepard and Tali shared a look. They had already felt the shift of null-gravity, their suits meg-locks already engaged ever since they left _Normandy's_ umbilical connection. Not to mention their suits' automatic life-support systems activated. Tali's environmental suit's air-filtration system was always on but the independent life support wasn't always active not with a breathable atmosphere.

Shepard looked around her and frowned behind her faceplate. "Won't we be detected? Don't they have intrusion alarms?"

That was a solid question Tali agreed. Surely the geth base had security provisions.

Legion shook its flashlight head. "Sensors have been reduced. We have infiltrated their wireless network and filled the data storage with random bits.

'So what.' Tali thought.

Shepard put those words into voice "That helps us how?"

Legion evenly provided the answer. "The heretics must scrub this 'junk' data. They have portioned themselves into local networks, working in parallel. Any alarm we trigger will not go beyond the room we are in. Only accessing the main core will trigger a station-wide alert."

"We've got a job to do. Let's do it." Shepard ordered pushing past both geth and quarian. She had only gone a few steps when Legion's mechanical voice called out.

"Shepard-Commander. We concluded that destruction of this station was the only resolution to the heretic question. There is now a second option."

Shepard whirled around staring at the clanker. Waiting.

"Their virus can be repurposed. If released into the station's network, the heretics will be rewritten to accept our truth."

Sensing the underlying irritation for not having all Intel or options at the onset in her captain, Tali stepped forward. "Either way the geth will not be a problem. But Shepard, If you rewrite these geth, they'll rejoin the others. Legion's geth will be stronger. Can we trust them not to attack us in the future?"

"Why didn't you mention this before we came aboard?" Shepard allowed the irritation to seep through as a consequence her voice turned sharp. Accusatory.

"We did not know the virus was complete. It is. It can be used against the true geth at any time. Our arrival was timely."

The irritation withered away from the Spectre. All soldiers knew what it was not to have the full Intel until boots hit the muck, and the situation of a theater could be better appraised. With certainly Shepard knew what Tali wanted and to be honest with herself she did too. But what did her newest crewmember want? She had to know what the clanker recommended. Not that she'd follow it but she was still gathering her own appraisal on the clanker. And she couldn't do that unless she pressed his resolve, she had to get under his skin…chassis or so to speak.

"They're your people, Legion. You must have an opinion."

"This is new data. We have not yet reached consensus."

That was as useful as a shrug of the shoulders and a 'meh'. That decided it. "I wouldn't brainwash an organic race, I can't see treating the geth differently."

"The question is irrelevant. If we do not rewrite them, we destroy them. That is why we are here. Do not hesitate now."

 _I am not hesitating you stupid clanker, I wanted to see the way you think._ Shepard thought.

Almost as if plucking the vibrations of the Spectre's thoughts Legion went on to say. "They will exterminate your species because their gods tell them to. You cannot negotiate with them. They do not share your pity, remorse or fear.

Shepard pressed forward down the corridor until she came to a set of stairs leading to the station's lower decks. A short corridor stretched from their stairwell to another chamber, here the deck plating had a very visible green running lights. or at least it looked like running lights but only if you gave it a dismissive glance. A better examination revealed the running lights were no such thing it appeared to be code.

To Shepard it was too close to the coded rooms David Archer created when he had hi-jacked the synthetic tech to show her the horrors he had suffered at the hands of his brother. She shuddered at the unwanted memory. Though she did not blame the boy for taking her over, the kid was terrified and in such great pain, it had unnerved the Spectre that her will was so easily taken over. Her body had wandered from room to room like a broken old fashioned clockwork toy from ages past. Not for the first time nor would it be the last that Shepard would compare that moment to how Matriarch Benezia described indoctrination.

Tali's voice cut into Shepard's transient thoughts. "The geth are inactive. Maybe we can sneak past them."

With a sudden shock Shepard glanced back to the floor and realized that glowing neon green lights were not running lights…they were geth!

"Interrupting data streams will alert local network. We recommend preemptive strikes against hardlink routers." Legion added.

Shepard's nod meant to convey that she believed Legion's suggestion to be a good idea. Far more carefully and more assuredly as if they had done it a thousand times before the troop navigated the room, without a single misstep.

Rounding the corner of the strangely angled bulkheads, Shepard spotted one of the hardlinks Legion spoke of. Taking even more careful aim with the geth pulse-rifle, a weapon she specifically chose for this mission, behind her Tali raised her own M-300 Claymore Heavy shotgun also taken from the armory for this mission. Normally the Quarian preferred her M-27 Scimitar Assault shotgun but the krogan's weapon dealt a greater high damage to shields, armour and biotic barriers. With incendiary rounds the shotgun was extraordinarily deadly. That was proven true when two of the chassis burned into a crisp.

With the shot the stations alarms rang out in a grinding _Woop—woop._ The data streams turned from green to red. The geth knew the companions were there now and they would seeking to eliminate the intruders.

Both woman took very careful aim at the backs of the unsuspecting geth hunter platforms and fired. In an instant the three platforms shattered like a fluttering sheaf of fallen dead leaves caught in the puff of wind. But it wasn't the wind that swirled the platforms around but the lack of zero-gravity. Shepard's body aglow with dark energy summoned the power to push the chassis into the bulkhead. Nothing was left.

"Shepard, I'm picking up useful resources in the geth hubs. We could salvage them for supplies." Tali suggested.

Shepard nodded and indicated that the first hub should be harvested. As she approached while watching Tali use her omni tool to turn the tangible resources into omni-gel she posed a question to Legion. "Why are all the heretics attached to these hubs?"

"These are mobile platforms. Hardware. The crew is software. They are communicating through the station's central computer." Legion answered.

In hearing the answer Shepard's head turned back to the deck-flooring where the data streams were-the crew. "Elaborate."

"The heretics connect to the main computer to exchange data-memories and program updates. We gain complexity by linking together. To be isolated within a single platform is to be reduced. We see less. Comprehend less. It is quieter."

That was exactly what Tali had told Shepard all those years ago when they had first met on the _Normandy SR-1_ when the Commander had first asked of the geth.

"If you exchange data—memories—how do you keep track of which ones are yours? How do you stay _you_?"

Tali listened to the exchange even as she and her drone continued to harvest the hub's resources. "There is only 'we'. " Legion said. "We were created to share data among ourselves. The difference between geth is perspective." Legion turned and looked at the hub and the data stream. "We are many eyes looking at the same things. One platform will see things another does not and will make different judgments." It turned and looked to Shepard.

"The heretics are apart of you. I can see why you'd be conflicted about them. In a way, whatever you do to them, you're doing to yourself."

"Yes. Once they return to us and upload their memories, we will share their experience of being altered."

"Every other species I know of might be psychologically scarred by a traumatic experience like that. " Shepard's voice was softer.

"It is not clear if geth can be 'traumatized.' We do not feel pain as you do."

Tali was shocked in hearing this. Shocked not because she had never contemplated such a thing that the geth could feel trauma, but because she was curious about the answer. She then cursed herself. for such foolishness. If a geth felt pain that meant they were more than AI-it meant they had a soul. And if they had souls…then Admiral Koris vas Quib Quib that frelling apologist was right. The Morning War was nothing short of genocide.

No. NO! They were _AI_ and not to be trusted. They were the enemy of the quarians. Her enemy, an enemy who slaughtered her father. Slaughtered all those aboard the Alarei. Enemies who stole her homeworld. They were the enemy as much as the collectors or the Reapers.

Tali gritted her teeth so hard she might had shattered them when she heard Legion continue on. "We cannot predict what the effects will be."

"Let's keep moving." Shepard said opening a door between corridors, what else could be said?

"Yes." Legion put to voice what Tali was thinking.

The long corridor ahead of them was aligned with turrets. As of yet they were inactive.

"We can assume control of any defensive turret. They will assist us briefly then self-destruct." Legion stated matter-of –factly.

"Do it."

"Assuming control." the AI's voice sounded too much like Harbinger for Shepard's liking.

How many times over the course of their mission had she heard those exact words? There were times the Commander doubted if anyone else but she had heard the Reaper's voice echo its intent as it seized the power over one of the collectors

But as much as Shepard disliked the phrasing she was grateful all the same as she saw the turrets respond to Legion's hacking. Tali scoffed under breath that she could just as easily do the same.

Despite the helm covering all but her eyes and those veiled behind her visor, Shepard managed to convey to her wife's Trusted that she knew and never questioned the Engineer's talent. As if further proving her point more to the geth than the Commander, Tali took over the remaining turrets. She would not be outdone by some bosh'tet clanker.

No sooner had the turrets' programming been taken over then the corridor was flooded with geth hunters and troopers entering from an adjacent room from the right. The elongated smooth domed turrets swiveled towards the newcomers and opened fire. The incoming geth had not expected to be gunned down by their own defenses. The first three went swiftly down.

Legion and Tali sent their combative drones out seeking to take out more. Tali knew her Commander well and sent her a defensive drone to cover the human. Shepard's body glowed eclectic blue, shimmering as she covered her body in biotic barriers, in the next instant Shepard shot out shockwaves of dark energy. Like liquid light rendered to a syrup of blue fire, a blazing spear of white and cerulean and orange streaking in to black, exploding, coruscating like shattered diamonds. The geth platforms shrieked as if in agony.

Behind her Tali targeted her quarry at the center of mass. The hunter's chassis splintered open from the M-300 Claymore devastating power. Standing above the diminutive quarian Legion raised the sniper rifle and took aim at his fellow geth's flashlight like head. If it was disturbed of destroying its kin…it made no show of it. The handful of platforms fell swiftly.

Detritus from the battle floated in the air around them in tiny spirals, an ever present reminder that they were Zero-G. The storage crates had to be mag-locked so not to float about with the lack of gravity. Even what was left of the geth platforms that hadn't been immolated with the incendiary fire, shifted in the confined space like tiny meteorites.

Shepard pressed forward. She moved over the threshold where the hunters had issued from. Here once more the data streams flowed along the deck; it was as much geth as Legion was. Shepard and Tali made certain not to step upon the glowing emerald deck plating. It was easy enough to avoid—it was as the opposite of keeping on the path to avoid walking upon the green of a meticulous lawn.

The three navigated the chamber easily, avoiding the data stream and the crates. Shepard stopped at a window; it had to been left over when the station had belonged to the quarians for what need of windows do the geth need? Were they not a structural weakness? Right now it was an opportunity, for beyond the glass was another of the hardlink routers.

Shepard nodded her head to her companions; in an instant all three hit the window and the hardlink. As before the incendiary rounds made short work of the hunters linked into the router. Klaxons belted out once more, and once more the green data stream flicked red.

In an instant geth swarmed from hidden alcoves. Shepard spun on her heel, spotted another windowed alcove, another router and sent a warp into the window—followed swiftly with a flare. So intent on her target she had not seen the shimmering air near her right that would have told the N7 there was a cloaked enemy at her flank.

The impact of his pulse rifle hitting her shields had shattered them, only her barriers kept her from being killed. Even still her eyes blazed with black-red strains of mind-numbing pain and she felt her heart thumbing hard in her ears as if to warn her, another hit would be her end. Instinctively she left shoulder-rolling behind a crate and further behind bulkhead giving her enough cover. It gave her the micro second to regain her senses. The hunter was hard on her heels. Shepard slammed the platform with a warp—followed by a swift flare. The combined mass effect energy created a synergy that generated at biotic explosion. It was not enough to destroy the geth but explosion of dark energy was enough to shatter the hunter's own shielding. More conveniently it had loosened the maglocks on the geth's feet causing it to float up into the null-air. Ducking back behind the bulkhead Shepard narrowly missed being shot by another trooper.

Keeping to cover Shepard took aim at the floating hunter then turned her attention to the trooper that was targeting Tali. The quarian's prey was the hunter that had pursued her captain. Next to the trooper another hunter had just lost its head, a clear mark of Legion's handiwork.

The active platforms were small—numbering only four. With the opposition downed Shepard barely paused long enough for the resources contained within the hubs to be recovered. Tali didn't blame the Spectre for wanting to push forward, to get to their true objective and put an end to the heretics.

Not for the first time did Tali think of this strike on the heretics as a win for her father and then belatedly added the others that had been lost on the Alarei. If she could Tali would have included the rest of the bosh'tet geth in this destruction but she'd take what she could get.

Almost as if she had been on the station before Shepard expertly navigated the base, around corners, down corridors and through large rooms, mindful always to keep an eye out for the data streams, roaming platforms. Those they did cross were swiftly put down. In the zero-gravity biotic powers were more than extremely effective. Shockwaves, leashes, singularities, throws, pulls and lifts allowed for Tali and Legion to target their floating-tumbling enemies and rend them asunder with combined tech explosions or pinpoint blasts from their shotguns. If the clankers still were functioning after such an assault Shepard released slams, reaves and flares.

Always the path led down then through corridors only to lead to other ramps that lead up. Up and around and around and up. It occurred to Tali that Shepard didn't necessarily instinctively know where she was leading them but was following the pipes and coiled wiring sheaths above their heads to its only logical conclusion the hub that Legion had described when they had first boarded the Heretic Station.

At each junction Legion and Tali took over turrets and hacked the geth patrolling the corridors so that they would turn against each other. When an enemy geth was finished downing its brethren the companions either Tali or Legion finish the hacked synth off. After all once they returned to their own control the geth would have gunned down the interlopers if given half a chance. They weren't.

It seemed they were nearing their final destination. They came to a large hub or rather a storage bay there was a catwalk which the teammates were on that surrounded a large pit-space at least fifty feet across that went down a deck. The shipping containers were filled with vacant mobile platforms waiting to be filled with geth. Surrounding these crates like a pack of border collies around a paddock of sheep were several turrets.

Once more Legion and Tali both overrode and hacked the six of the eight turrets. The two remaining free turrets were swiftly destroyed by pinpoint accuracy on Shepard's part. The geth had obviously been expecting the attack, as they had tried to set up an ambush site to cut off their station's attackers. As soon as the trio entered they were fired upon. The techs had barely enough time to override the turrets before they dove for cover and set loose their drones.

Even if they had anticipated their own turrets turning on them the shielded hunters continued their relentless assault on the interlopers. Shepard saw the telltale shimmer of personal cloaking devices of advancing hunter at her twelve. The CPU in her suit was blind to it, but organic eyes spotted the shimmer. Biotic barriers already in place, the Spectre summoned the dark energy of eezo into a cloud around her as an annihilation field and charged the clanker with both her Omni blade and asari short sword drawn.

She was rewarded with a hard slam as the synth was flung into the air and held spiraling in the zero gravity. Its chassis cut in two. The white hydraulic fluid conformed into blobs and floated in the air around her like soap bubbles. The immediate explosion of the combined charge and annihilation field nearly rocketed off her mag-boots.

She sprinted around the open windows of the bay and ducked down. A quick glance over the bulkhead and HUD picked up two…no three synths moving up the ramp. Sending out a lift at one of them Shepard ducked back down, before its companion could get off a shot. Another quick peek and a biotic throw resulted in am impressive explosion of dark energy particles. Shepard lifted her N7 Eagle took aim at the now visible third white chassis and fired point-blank

Still hunkered down on the other side of the bay, Tali zeroed in on one of clankers in the pit area and used an override –energy drain combination that encompassed not only a single enemy but an entire area. The EMP pulse of the energy drain would knock out the geth trooper systems for a short moment, giving the energetic little quarian engineer time to plan her next move. Three of the synthetics crumpled and fell. Chiktikka zoomed in like a little pink globe of happy-bouncing energy targeted the mass of metal with an electrical shock so powerful that caused a tech-explosion that rivaled her Commander's biotic display.

At the same moment his organic shipmates were using a pincer moment on the heretics, Legion zeroed in on the rocketeers. He needed to keep them off his companions and prevent them from firing. Using disrupter ammo in his Black Widow he was able to take precious nanoseconds to deadeye precision and snip the heads off the mobile platforms.

There was a strange deafening silence that followed the blasts of turrets and explosions, the sort that allowed you to catch your breath, steel your nerves and check the five-by-five of your squad. Seeing that both Tali and Legion were top-form Shepard pressing on passed the room she mentally dubbed the crucible as the ultimate objective. Bringing up her Omni-tool to double check their immediate location and the hub Legion had painted as a target Shepard signaled her team to move out.

At the end of the corridor there was a blast door Shepard flanked the port side leaving Tali to take starboard and Legion at point. It was empty. It was only the span of three paces before the corridor lead to a ramp that spiraled down several more decks. At the bottom of the ramp was another blast door, once more Shepard went port, Tali starboard and Legion at point.

Shepard moved through first, and was struck immediately with enemy fire. "We've been spotted!" She called out a warning, rolled behind stacked containers. Using a hand signal Shepard ordered her geth to take over the turret that had fired on her.

"Hacking your target." Legion acknowledged. As so many times before the overridden IFF identified the Normandy crew as friendlies spun around on the heretic troopers and unleashed a relentless volley of laser fire.

Both Tali's and Legion's weapons were loaded with disrupter rounds, but Shepard's assault rifle and hand cannon both had warp rounds, combined with warps and singularities. It was enough to tear through the hunters' shielding. Leaving the clankers vulnerable for the combat drones sent out by both squadmates as well as biotics slams and flares. Add a few lift-grenades and the foothold the heretics held was broken.

This area like the 'crucible' held several containers albeit much smaller. What the synths had stored in them was anybody's guess, all save for Legion of course, but he wasn't asked to clarify.

Looking around, Tali was in awe. "I had no idea the geth built stations this large." Her mind reeled at the implications. Unlike aliens however much affection she had for them, non-quarians still troubled over the fact the geth were not the mobile platforms they fought, but software within the hardware. How many more stations like this one existed? How many geth were there now? How many times had they replicated?!

Keelah! No war with the geth could be won! Not if they had stations like this littered within the Perseus Veil. No matter how much she disliked Admiral vas Quib Quib…maybe he was right….to preach an armistice with the geth. Was that even possible? No…but war would be suicide!

"This station is over fifteen kilometers long. That room may run the length of it." Legion said in his toneless manner.

"Legion, bypass that terminal." Shepard ordered "Tali set up both Chiktikka and your defensive drone. I want tripwires set up at either end of the hall. I don't want the clankers to take our six. " giving the order, Shepard moved several lengths down the hub terminal, accessed her Omni-tool controls and activated the crossbow attachment they had picked up during the heist of Donavan Hocks estate

"On it." Tali darted in the opposite direction, eager to obey. She gave a small thought that too bad her husband wasn't here with his ever so convenient proximity mines that he threw before the enemy lines like Frisbees.

Legion hacked the terminal and gathered much needed Intel on geth shield strengths which he transmitted to Shepard Commander.

"We can use this." She said in acknowledging the transmission even as she opened the door on her right and once more led her team down the ramps until the Hub-Actual. Mindful not to step on the green illumination of the data streams, which were as she had to remind herself the geth, Shepard moved ever onward. Another geth hub was destroyed that resulted din the data streams turning red. But her spider web traps forestalled the geth from ambushing them. Sweeping the room Tali found another small uplink hub which she deftly zapped with an overload.

With the clankers felled the _Normandy_ trio were able to push ever forward. Once past the blast door the corridor stretched before them for several meters. On the right hand side were windows that seemed to have larger version of the data hubs, all with spherical keg-like containers.

"Are these data bases?" Tali asked Legion.

"Processors." Legion corrected. "Each container contains thousands of geth."

"Can't they see us walking by?" Tali asked the very same question that was on Shepard's mind.

"They are no more aware of us than you are of the cells in your bloodstream."

Shepard replaced her weapons and gazed out at the many hundreds upon hundreds of processors. "This isn't like the other hubs we've seen here."

"This is a database. It contains a portion of the heretics' accumulated memories." Legion's head lifted and the central photoreceptors in the center of its 'face' lit up just like a flashlight. "Wait. We discovered copies of our current patrol routes in this database. This suggests the heretics have confines within our networks."

"That's not surprising. We wouldn't be here if the heretics wanted to be friends with the geth. Why wouldn't they spy on you?" Shepard rounded.

"You do not understand. Organics do not know each other's minds. Geth do. We are not suspicious. We accept each other. The heretics desired to leave. We understood their reason. We allowed it. There was peace between us."

"Things change, Legion. It couldn't have lasted forever. You disagreed about a path your race should take."

"Human history is a litany of blood shed over differing ideals of rulership and afterlife. Geth have no such history. We shaded consensus on such things. How could we have become so different? Why can we no longer understand each other? What did we do wrong." His 'face' flaps shifted in the geth version of a hapless shrug.

His questions were almost child-like.

"It's not your fault, Legion. When individuals are separated, they develop different ways. When thy get back together, they don't always get along." Shepard tried to explain the dichotomy of independent relationships as best as she was able.

"If this is the individuality you value, we question your judgment." Legion retorted, sounding once more aloof. "This topic is irrelevant. We must return to our mission." Now it sounded perturbed.

"Speaking of that have you reached a decision about whether to rewrite the heretics or not?" Shepard and Tali both preferred to blow them up, for different reasons. To Shepard deactivation was preferable to indoctrination or ….being rewritten. To Tali…a destroyed geth was the best sort of geth to have.

"We are still trying to build consensus. Some processes judge destruction. Others rewrite."

"Noted, Let's keep moving."

"Yes." Legion answered ands waited for the Commander to pass it before it tailed her alongside Creator Tali'Zorah

Removing respective weapons from the weapons pack on the back of their hardsuits or chassis Shepard led them past the processing cores to the far end of the hall to yet another blast door. Unlike the majority of them this one did not needed to be prompted to open with an omni-tool as it opened upon approach.. The same eerie blue illuminating and small bits of detritus filled the air around them. What made this scene more ghostly was that it bore a strange resemblance to some techno-cathedral created by the heretics. there were lines of four-sided pillars reaching up to the upper decks as if holding up a Byzantium basilica. What might have been the equivalent of naves jutted out like wings on either side of the Main Hall—if it could be called a Hall.

From the entrance was a pit that ran two metres wide by three lengthwise. More processors were staked in the strange keg-barrels beneath them. By the look of it the entire deck below them were walled with such containers. What would have been a dais in any Minster or Cathedral was a hub interface, not unlike the one previous that Legion had hacked on Shepard's behest.

Dozens of computer blocks littered the Hall offering plenty of cover opportunities but little ways in the means to barricade the sure to come onslaught once Legion enters the mainframe.

"This is it?" Shepard gestured with her left hand to the glowing triangular terminal.

"Yes. We will upload a copy of our routine into the core. It will delete all copies of the virus. When complete, it will notify us. The indexing operation will take time. The heretics will respond with force to our upload. We must hold this room."

As Legion was explaining Tali moved to look down at the chamber below them. she saw several turrets crisscrossed the chamber but very little cover. There were those shipping containers that by now she knew held several mobile platforms for the geth to jump into as needed.

"We can override some of the stations internal systems to defend us. Are you ready to begin?

"Sounds like a good idea." Shepard nodded. "Just like before. I want tripwires set up, not just up here be fire them down below as well. Be careful not to hit the data streams when we secure the room. If we can set up the wire nets across those containers I want it done. It may not stop them from activating but it may take a few of them out while they try to assemble a response.

"I want the combat drones posted at the far end of the room, and the defensive drones flagging either side of the entrance points here and here." Shepard pointed to both sides of the hall nearest the hub. "Each of you takes one side of the room below and maintain control over the turrets. If one is destroyed overtake another. I'll set up Singularities just before the webbing, which should keep the clankers off our backs for few moments. But it won't last."

Tali answered with her ever chipper 'On it" And Legion responded with the clipped 'Affirmative.'. It took only a few precise moments to carry out the Spectre's orders. Once the room had been as secure as they could make it Shepard turned to her geth teammate.

"Start your upload Legion, We'll defend this position."

"File transfer begun Shepard-Commander. Alert heretic runtimes downloading into mobile platforms."

It was difficult to know what went off first the chain-reaction of the omni-monofilament explosive tripwires crisscrossing the chamber below and the containers or the volley turrets fire.

It was a harrowing of playing duck-fire-overload-shockwave-flare-energy drain-assault rifle fire-shotgun—dash-cover fire-duck—sniper rifle—overload-warp- singularity – dash—duck-more weapons fire.

More than once Shepard and Tali lost shields forcing them to sprint for new cover until their suits onboard computer recharged the shielding. Fortuitously Shepard had her barriers up but Tali was not so fortunate. A couple of times she got singed but her suit held. Legion's chassis was that of a trooper but it had to have made modifications along with his pilfered N7 hardsuit replacements. He was nearly as strong as one of the hunters. He also adapted the duck and cover routine from the organics rather than stand amidst being fired upon in order to destroy its enemy with return fire. It was adapting-learning.

Shepard felt adrenaline surge in her blood—fueling her body allowing her to call upon reserves of dark energy. Her main focus was stopping the geth rocket troopers from storming the ramps from the room below.

Just when there seemed to be a respite, Legion would call out his warning of 'heretics runtimes into mobile platforms.'

Tali and Legion both circulated their control over the turrets, so that half below fired even as three on their level maintained a near constant barrage on either side of the room trying desperately to keep the ramps clear. Shepard had long ago run out of her lift grenades. There seemed to be even more troopers rushing them.

To Tali it felt nightmarishly insane trying to keep their position from being overrun. It was far worse here than it had been on the _Alarei_. Her body was now swimming in antibiotics from suit punctures. She heard Shepard cry out in pain was one of the geth troopers hit her hard taking out her shields, it was astonishing that the rocket hadn't killed her. She could read Shepard's HUD; her suit was taking longer than normal to recharge the shields. One more hit and that would be it. For a moment Tali's HUB filled with black lines and she heard the thud-thud of her own heartbeat…or was that an echo of Shepard's.

Diving for new cover Tali zeroed in both her drones to where her Commander was pinned down, by a rocketeer and a prime on either side of her. Their continuous onslaught from below made it near impossible for the Commander to find new cover.

"Go get them Chiktikka, good girl" Tali pointed to the rocket troopers. "Bouncy…" She had yet to truly name her blue defensive drone. "Stay with the Commander. Protect her." a pause. "Good boy."

The pink drone swirled around the rocker troopers drawing their attention. all at once the drone spun hitting the geth with an EM pulse before exploding—rendering the red geth inert.

Chiktikka wasn't truly destroyed, in a few moments Tali could resummon the energetic VI to her side and send it out into the fray once more. But its seeming suicide run allowed Shepard to take new cover. She gave a small salute of thanks to Tali as she did so.

Her shields now fully restored Shepard spun on her heel slammed the assault rifle in her weapon's pack and charged a hunter that had made it past the barricade on the ramp. As before the swords embodied and empowered with eezo made short work of the hunter. Another behind it was a regular trooper was obliterated when its chassis was enveloped by a biotic lift-slam. A third went down with a shockwave caused by the asari sword strike.

It was the last. The after battle silence filled the room making it seem all that more tight and congested

"Data mining analyses complete." Legion announced drawing attention of the other two. "Shepard-Commander it is time to choose. Do we rewrite the heretics or delete them."

Shepard looked to Tali and knew what her wife's Trusted would say. It was what she was going to say, still the Spectre wanted to know what if anything had changed in the geth consensus.

"Why are you letting me make the decision? They are your people."

"We are conflicted. There is no consensus amongst our higher order runtimes. 573 favor rewrite and 571 favor destruction. Shepard-Commander. You have fought the heretics. You have perspective we lack. The geth grant their fate to you."

Shepard could almost hear Tali's eyebrows rise in astonishment at this declaration. Hell she was agog. "You don't have any trouble wiping out your own people?"

"Every sapient has the right to make their own decisions. The heretics chose one path that prohibits coexistence."

Tali shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. If they 'have the right to make their own decision' how can you suggest brainwashing them to accept your way?"

"We stated the option exists. We did not endorse it. It is Shepard-Commander's decision"

"What's to stop them from using the virus later to change themselves back?" Shepard poised the question as a devil's advocate.

"We will delete the virus after using it. We judge it too dangerous to allow its existence.

"There's no guarantee they won't come to the same conclusion again, is there. To worship the Reapers, and attack organics?" Shepard had to ask.

"There is a non zero probability of error."

Shepard took an affirmative step forward. What could be seen though the visor of her helmet pinpointed Legion's cycloptic-photosensor. "Then blow them up. We have a chance to end this. I won't waste it."

"Acknowledged." Legion responded without hesitation and moved to the data core. "Collapsing antimatter magnetic botting mechanisms Done. Recommend withdrawal to _Normandy._

Three minutes never took so long and paradoxically ran so quickly. The door to the right of them opened. Had she been by herself Shepard would have used countless biotic charges to rush the length of their escape. But leaving Tali even Legion behind was not an option.

"MOVE!" she barked and ran.

The corridors were filled with geth trying to bar their way. Shepard lashed out with shockwaves after shockwaves. The only time she did a charge was to hit a prime dead center with her blades, even that hit didn't destroy it but it did take out its shield's long enough for both Tali and Legion to zero in on it and finish it off with a shot to its flashlight head with a sniper rifle and full energy drain.

One minute-thirty nine seconds to go. Airlock. Umbilical connection. _Normandy!_

A sigh of relief.

Just seconds before the entire station exploded the Normandy hit FLT.

The aftermath of the destruction of the geth heretics may well change the galactic landscape. Bolstering observations of geth space to monitor any fleet movements, for one. Regardless data recovered from the geth station offered valuable insight into AI social and technological processes. Tali was more than eager to send this to the Migrant Fleet as well as warning that other stations like the heretic's must exist and even though they were not filled with heretics, the number of geth was astronomical. No war with the geth could be fought and won, not with the number of war ships in Han'Gerrel's fleet. It would take something profoundly drastic and far more dangerous and even more foolhardy to turn the tide in the quarrian's favour.

Least of all …with the geth house divided…was Legion's devotion to Shepard's mission of stopping the collectors and perhaps even with the Reapers. And if Legion could be made to be committed so too was the possibility of the rest of the geth joining in the cause against not the collectors but the Reapers.


	17. Quiet Moments Are Hard To Come By

Chapter 17: Quiet Moments Are Hard To come By—Especially On The Normandy

Upon reaching the shuttle bay, Tali checked her weapons in her locker and headed for the lift, waited a moment for Legion to catch up, as Shepard as at her side almost at the same instant. Without looking at her Tali knew her Commander's eyes fell on her.

"You're going to the medbay." It was not a question. "I saw you take a few hits that your shields didn't absorb. How bad is it?"

"Not bad."

"Tali…"

"The antibiotics flooded my suit. I'll be fine, Commander."

"Just so you know if _my_ Trusted not my XO comes knocking on my cabin door with his mandibles flaring do to the fact his wife had to spend a few days in ICU _because_ she didn't listen to reason or an order to go check in with Dr. Chakwas, I'm spinning it back on you."

Behind her mask Tali grinned. "Understood, Commander. I'll head to medbay, right now."

"That's my Chief Engineer." The doors opened on the Crew Deck, Shepard carefully watched as both quarian and geth headed towards the medbay: one going to Chakwas the other to the AI Core.

Tali didn't look over her shoulder; she could feel the Specter's worried eyes following her footsteps and smiled deeply, as she felt the care and even love from her Captain. Now more than ever before Tali felt being vas _Normandy_ was truly ship name of pure pride. When she was first forced to take that ship name during her trial Tali felt as a pariah amongst her own people. Ripping her ship name from her was supposed to be the lowest mark of shame without being exiled and at the time she might as well accept the inevitable fate of being an outcast.

But being vas _Normandy_ was the proudest ship name any quarian could ever have. Tali stood a little taller in that moment, feeling the pride of her ship-name…the pride of her Captain. There was nowhere Shepard would or could lead that Tali wouldn't follow.

As it happened the antibiotics had done their job, other than using a bit of medigel there was little more Chakwas could do. The greater damage hadn't been to Tali personally but to her suit. Thankfully she had a few spares. The purple paisley one she often favored and the more special suit Shepard had gotten her during that first Mission against Saren the black and red Colossus armour that was favored by the N7s.

In fact the armor had come into procession the team when they had stopped the bartarian raid on mining asteroid over Terra Nova. The batarians had initially came on a slave raid but their leader a deplorable man named Balak decided instead to use the asteroid to hit the human colony that would have resulted in an excitation level event. Shepard had killed all the batarians on the asteroid, all but Balak. He was allowed to walk free of his crimes in order to save the hostages he had barricaded behind a booby trapped door.

It had not been an easy decision. Tali doubted she would have been able to make it, and to this day she was grateful she wasn't in any position to make those sorts of decisions. She was no Admiral. She was an Admiral's daughter and a dammed fine engineer but to hold so many lives in your hand and make cold hard decisions like that, Tali doubted she had it in her. If she were in any sort of position like that she'd just ask herself 'What would Shepard do?'

Back in her quarters after passing through the room's decontamination filter, she passed the partition of the cabin to the 'bedroom.' After double checking the clean room filters were functioning, she stripped out of her compromised suit and into the prized Colossus suit. She loved the black and red patterns, true it wasn't her favored purple but the black and red was so similar to the black and red of the lauded N7, that wearing it Tali always felt…a 'muchness' surround her. Empowered. Wearing the Colossus suit Tali felt if the Admiralty board appointed her father's position right then and there she'd take it.

As she was readjusting her omni-tool Tali's eyebrow shot up in alarm the firewalls pinged. Someone was trying to scan it. Using a tracer mod she had fitted into the omni-tool Tali wasn't at all surprised to discover that it was Legion.

"Bosh'tet!" Tali slammed the Omni tool on marched to the larger ' office' part of her quarters, rip open the footlocker that contained a Carnifax pistil she was allowed to keep in her quarters-practically flew out of her quarters all but ran across the mess hall and into sailed into medbay.

Dr. Chakwas abruptly stood up from her files to inquire at the sudden appearance of the young quarian she had only released a only a half hour ago but Tali shut her up with a hand and marched directly into the AI Core.

"Oh crap." was the all doctor said before hitting the ship's intercom. "Commander, Tali just went to have a 'chat' with Legion in the AI Core. You'd better get down here." Chakwas warned. "I have a bad feeling about this."

*I'm on my way.* Shepard out… _Damn it…one day just one_ _ **fracking**_ _day; I'd like my flagship team to play nice with each other. Is that too much to ask?_ The last sentence was said under the Commander's breath. It was obvious she had believed her words not to have been said on the ship-wide communications

Legion had the audacity to be studying his own omni-tool trying in vain to hack Tali's. It looked up, its face plates fanned out not unlike a surprised turian as its single photoreceptor rested on the young engineer.

"Creator Tali'Zorah…"

"I'm here to end you, you bosh'tet clanker! I know exactly what you've been doing. You hacked my omni-tool and I know you have a link to the rest of the geth! We should left you to be destroyed with the rest of your kind on that station!" Her gun raised without hesitation or second thought. "I'll make sure that happens right now!"

When Shepard walked into the AI core she saw Tali pointing her pistol point-blank at Legion. The young quarian turned to her Commander feeling vindicated.

"Shepard! I'm glad you're here. I caught Legion scanning my omni tool. It was going to send data about the Flotilla back to the geth!" the sneer on her face was evident in her voice.

"The creators preformed tests on geth hardware. We believed it necessary to warn our people of possible aggression." Legions responded coldly.

"We weakened the geth by destroying that base Shepard, but they are still a threat." Tali gestured with one hand as she continued to hold her pistol at the snyth. "I won't let Legion endanger the Fleet!"

"Creator Tali'Zorah acts out of loyalty to her people. She was willing to be exiled to protect them. We must also protect out people form the creator threat." the snyth delivered in simple cold logic.

"You can't let this happen, Shepard! I trusted you! And will work with a geth on the team. But this is too much!" The rage was evident in the young woman's voice.

Shepard took a breath of air, how to explain they were both right? This was Miranda and Jack all over again. Though she highly doubted Tali would engage in hate-sex with the snyth even if she wasn't a married woman. Jack and Miranda thought themselves so clever in keeping their little affair clandestine. A different approach then—not the whole 'we have to work together' spiel that had worked on the women, this called for pure cold logic. It was something the Chief Engineer and snyth could both appreciate.

Putting steal into her voice Shepard said: "Tali your father was running brutal experiments on the geth. If the subjects had been human, I'd damn well be telling the Alliance about it."

The gun still didn't lower, though Tali's voce did become softer, almost apologetic or perhaps the better adjective was shame filled. "I know. But if the geth find out…"

"...they'd attack." Shepard finished for her wife's Trusted. "This would cause a war that would leave both the geth and the quarians vulnerable when the Reapers show up. Is that what you want Legion?" blue eyes turned to the clanker accusingly.

"We believed it was necessary to relay the information." the snyth responded defensively almost dismissively.

"Sooner or later you both are going to have to stop fighting this war, or we'll all end up paying for it. "

Still the gun did not lower.

Legion's head swiveled to the creator. "To felicitate unit cohesion we will not transmit data regarding creator plans."

Only now did Tali lower her weapon. "Thank you Legion." There was a brief pause, "I understand your intention." it shocking even Tali to hear herself not only speak the words but mean them. With a shrug she prompted: "What if I gave you some non-classified data to send?"

"We would be grateful."

The next few seconds filled with Tali accessing her Omni tool, opening a tap in one of the many data files she had within its core matrix and sending the files directly to Legion's memory core.

"Legion under no circumstances will you transmit anything to the geth without my express authority. You will comply. There will be no comprise, no alterative. Do you understand? I took an incredible risk and I will add against the wishes of every single crew member aboard this ship to not only activate you but to activate you and keep you on board and even make you part of my team. Flaunting this privilege is a good way to end up out the airlock. "

"We understand Shepard Commander. We will comply."

"Good. Because, the next time you pull anything like this again that is exactly what will happen. I will not have my ship, my crew or this mission compromised. My orders are the only _consensus_ you have on the _Normandy_ and apart of this crew _._ "

"We have all ready stipulated we will comply with the Shepard-Commander's consensus." Legion said arterially.

Shepard nodded her head and let the matter drop. Warning given and received. For her part Tali made good on her promise and activated her omni tool sending Legion the non-classified files she had promised.

Tali glanced up and watched Shepard go. Her breath sucked inwardly filling her lungs hard. She couldn't tell if Shepard was disappointed in her or not. Yes had pointed a gun at a fellow crewmate, technically. But Legion was still a geth and the enemy of her people. Yes the heretics had been destroyed but after discovering the sheer enormity of the geth aboard that station put everything in a very real perspective.

Once she had finished with the geth…with …Legion Tali returned to her cabin and filled out a report to the Admiralty Bard. She told them everything about the mission to the heretic station, the vast amount of geth on that station, even how the _Normandy_ came to have a geth on their crew. What he had attempted, Shepards' response to it and her own. She held nothing back. When she had finished the report and sent it Tali felt drained, absolutely drained. She fell back on to her bed, and took the tiny moment of freedom and removed her facemask and then her helmet. She took in one breath of clean room air and wept.

The futility of it all! A war with the geth would destroy her people! The Reapers were coming, the quarians needed to forget about homeworld, they needed to forget the geth, they needed to bolster every single resource, ever single life and prepare for the dark days. If she couldn't argue the Admiralty Board to turn course of course action the quarian would face an extinction level event.

"Tali?" Garrus's whispered softly as he entered the cabin. All at once Tali rushed him headless of breaching the safeties of the clean room and fell into her husband's arms. The tears wouldn't stop flowing.

Garrus picked up her tiny frame and rushed into the clean room section of their cabin sat down on the bed and held his wife on his lap until her tears turned into hard hiccups. He asked no questions, demanded nothing. He loved this woman he loved deeply until even her tear-soaked hick-ups receded into the soft snores of overly emotional outburst.

Gingerly Garrus shifted his wife from his arms to the bed and with just as much care he started to remove the black and red Colossus environment suit leaving her only in the body sleeve. He might have been curious at first as to why Tali chose to change her favored purple environmental suit that what she claimed to be her dress suite if it had not been for Shepard sending a private message to him. The Spectre had given her XO an entire field report on what occurred on the geth base, the injuries Tali had sustained and then Shepard spoke of the emotional backlash Tali was bound to experience.

Almost as soon as the crew fled from the umbilical connection from Heretic Station to the _Normandy_ , Shepard had informed Garrus that Tali was going to need massive amounts of TLC, but not immediately at least not medically. The aftermath of the mission had to play out on a natural progression. Like somehow the Commander knew what Tali was going to go through and when she needed space and when she needed comfort.

That got Garrus more than curious, hell yes he wanted to rush to the medbay once he had learned his wife had been injured. Shepard however informed him that that his wife's injuries weren't life threatening, and Tali was going to need time. As a quarian Tali would resent being handled it kid-gloves just because of her weakened immune system.

It was just precautionary that Tali was reporting to the Doc, even upon the Commander's insistence. After what they had discovered on the station, Tali needed her space, time to process everything she saw and learned about the geth division. Hell Garrus could attest to that. If his wife didn't want company she wasn't shy on telling him so. More than a few times she told him he should 'shove off and go calibrate something.' or that his voice sounded like a vorcha. Of course if she wanted his attentions and he was in fact off doing calibrations she'd let him know what she thought of that. More than a few times he was reminded she had a shotgun. Tali was no loner the chipper- little pushover everyone she had been when they first met her all those years ago. She had become a very capable woman. Indeed the young quarian had matured a great deal within Shepard's shadow, so much so she was now casting her own shadow for others to follow in.

Tucking his beloved in under the covers of their bed Garrus never felt more in love with his energetic diminutive quarian than he was at that moement even during their wedding ceremony that Shepard had officiated.

Garrus watched over his wife as she slumbered, worried for her. Tali was not one for overly emotional displays that had placed into a fitful sleep. Oh she showed exuberance in things she was passionate about: her work in engineering, dancing (she was certainly much better than Shepard, but then a frog in a blender was a much better dancer than Shepard's 'dad dancing'), signing along to all the songs in Fleet and Flotilla, the Migrant Fleet and her people and of course their lovemaking.

There were only a few times Tali ever broke down, truly broke down and lost herself in deep emotional turmoil: The first had been when they thought they had lost Shepard after the Battle of the Citadel. The second time had been when Garrus had been seriously injured—taking a rocket to the face during one of the scrimmages with the Blue Suns, the third after she had returned from the Migrant Fleet and that farce of a trial that had been pure anger but the cascading sorrow of her father's death was both anger and deep loss.

And now with whatever happened on that heretics' base had shook Tali to her very core. She looked shattered more than even Shepard had returning from the collector's ship. She wore the expression Shepard had the day her first child had been killed-unholy wrath and unending pain and the sudden realization that her world and all its hope had died.

Placing a kiss on Tali's lips as soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing on the cheek Garrus left their quarters and headed directly to what the ship builds called the Captain's Nest. There he paused, rose his hand with a pointed finger to ring the chime and dropped his hand only to raise it twice more before he steeled his reserve enough to hit the buzzer.

"I was wondering when you'd be stopping by." Shepard opened the door turned and went back into the 'den' part of her large quarters but not before stopping at a small hidden alcove tucked away under the L shaped desk in her officer area. One bottles was red the other blue. Garrus recognized both on sight. The red was turian brandy-triple filtered the other was Serrice iced-bandy.

She poured a snifter for both, sat down. "Chewing me out or asking me questions?" She said with a dead-pan no-nonsense expression.

"I thought I knew at first." Garrus took his ale and sat down on the sofa adjacent to the one Shepard had claimed.

Silence

Another snifter each.

"What actually happened over there?" The Specter's Trusted asked.

"A reality check" came an answer.

Another snifter-each. This one fuller than the last.

"The quarians can't win." Garrus said.

"In a full out war? No. No, the quarians cannot win, not even if they are stupid enough and I can't believe they will be to turn all of their ships into war vessels. On that station we saw the enormity of heretics and that is only a very tiny fraction of the geth.

"Garrus, save for the geth themselves only the quarians understand the vastness of snyth populations. The whole time we were fighting the geth it was so easy to see one of those mobile platforms as a signal geth. But each platform hold thousands of them, our resident snyth was right he IS Legion for he contains multitudes. The geth are software, they don't need the platforms to exist. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if we find out they can exist quite easily in the cloud of the extranet—like some Trojan virus.

"That's why she's upset; she saw the futility of a war between her people and the geth. When we were on the base Legion explained the same way Tali how the geth censuses works. How they are smarter the more of them there are. They are programs, Start deleting all those zeros and ones in their binary code and you start loosing whole colonies of the bastards. That's when they start slowing down, code lost. I saw it, data streams along the floor of the station going into data core hubs. As fast as the speed of thought. But even lost code can be overridden—rewritten-reprogrammed. That's how the Reapers got a hold of them in the first place. Even Legion thought of reprogramming the heretics to think like the rest of the geth. He left the choice to me. "

"I see you gave him his answer. 'Hell no. We blow it up.'

"Pretty much those words exactly. I won't brainwash a person, I don't see any difference with a snyth mind. Better they're deleted or exterminated or whatever it was." Shepard them told him of what had happened in the AI core.

"Ah crap." came a murmured flagging growl

"Yeah." The glasses were refilled, by now the bellies were warmed by ale and brandy, the heads fuzzy, words slurred and inhibitions nascent.

"But…"Garrus raised his glass. "You've made a whole career out of futility and the impossible. They said it was impossible to hold Elysium against an entire platoon of batarian slavers. You did. By yourself. They said it was impossible to not only find Ilos but the conduit as well. You did and saved the lives of less than grateful Councilors. Now they say it is impossible for us not only to travel through the Omega Four relay and return but to destroy the collector base. Once we do that, we can find the ways to stop the Reapers." He laughed. "Just to make things interesting during our war with the Reapers, we'll have to come up with six impossible things for to you do."

"You gotta list?" Shepard starred into her brandy.

"One get everyone together as one massive armada, both sides of the Attican Travers, the Perseus Vail and the Terminus systems: including the fracking batarians. Two: Krogans willingly working along side turians and salarians just like we did during the Rachni Wars. Oh and don't forget them, they'll be joining us –after all you did save their new queen. Figure she owes you big.

"Three…" here Garrus seemed to pause for a moment to consider. "You cure the genophage. Four you get Rannoch back for the quarians without too much blood or coolant shed. Five you put down Cerberus like the mad dog they are, and you put a bullet in that smug bosh'tet TIMmy."

There was a long pause. "You forgot six."

"Well that's the hardest of them all." Garrus's mandibles flared in a turian smile.

"Which is?"

"Having a quite life retired with your wife and kids after you destroy the Reapers."

"Oh I'll have my life with wife and my girls."

"I noticed you left out the word _retired._ " another turian smile. "See the hardest one."

"I'm not the retiring kind, Garrus. Might take a year off to be with my girls—all three of them-but giving up space…my ship." she stroked the bulkhead behind her as she might have Liara's thigh. "Not a chance."

"Liara, know you touch _Normandy_ like that?" The Trusted teased.

"Oh she knows." A cocky grin. "She even told me one time before we were married that she knew the _Normandy_ was my first true love, but she was willing to share."

"But that was the SR1 this is the SR2."

A pause. "Yeah, I know there is nothing of the original _Normandy_ in her, but maybe its like that old family shovel." At Garrus blank stare Shepard went on to explain the human metaphor. "Okay back in the day a young man buys a shovel. Bright shinny and new and he spent two whole dollars on it. This was back in the day when two dollars was a lot of money. The heft of it is polished blonde maple. The blade is perfect forged steal on a blacksmith's anvil no less, none of this dicast nonsense, and it shown brightly. To him it's beautiful, ready to start help him make his new farm bloom.

"When he got too old to use this shovel he passed it down to his son. After forty odd years of use the blade is a little loose, so it's removed from the heft and replaced with new screws and a with a new pinewood heft that isn't so worn or splintered. Another twenty there more chips form in the blade and it can't keep its edge and it's a little more than rusty, so the blade is replaced with one of those new factory made aluminum heads that isn't supposed to rust. But damn it, its still old granddad's shovel and it's been passed down through the generations from father to son or to daughter and so on and on. Almost every twenty years or so new a heft or a new blade or new screws replace the old. But damn it its still great great great granddad's shovel that he bought to start his new farm and it was worth two dollars. Way back then that was a lot of money."

Garrus thought for a moment. "It's the memory of the shovel and its history that has meaning. Not the actually physical shovel."

"Yeah, exactly." Shepard touched _Normandy's_ bulkhead. "This is my ship. She has all new parts and larger and save for us there is nothing of the original in her but damn it, this is my _Normandy_."

They laughed.

"She'll see us though to the other side of that relay and she'll get us home again." There was an undeniable pride in Shepard's voice. She started to pour herself another shifter then paused and put the bottle down. She had had enough. "If at all possible, she'll see Tali take her homeworld back. I just don't know how yet. Find away to get a sit down between Legion and the Admiralty Board. After all the clanker did say the geth were acting as custodians over Rannoch not ownership."

"You got them to back down a listen to you before during the trial, maybe they will listen now. I might have said if anyone else was involved it'd be impossible for peace talked but hell you eat impossible for breakfast."

Shepard grinned and toasted her XO with the last dregs of her brandy before she swallowed it. It was a subtle dismissal; one Garrus took by swallowing the last of his own ale.

"Take the bottle." Shepard said pointing with her chin towards the turian brandy. "But, I want both of you clear headed tomorrow morning."

"Aye aye Commander." there was no jest or teasing in the XO's voice this time but the solemn timber of a promise.

Taking the bottle of turian brandy Garrus and to admit Shepard may not be able to drink the stuff but she knew good quality. This was at least twenty credits a bottle. It wasn't just the good stuff it was one to the best. Then again he expected nothing less form Shepard. She had expensive tats when it came to alcohol. That being said she wasn't above taking a swig of grease money grog either. He knew how tipsy he was when he tried walking to the lift that'd take him down to t he crew quarters. The whole ship was listing. Shepard on the other hand would drink three times what he did and still sober enough to run a fracking marathon and then turn around and go into battle.

The Commander metabolized alcohol quicker than a krogan, hell she even down a pint of raknol, of course that sent her spewing in the toilet but then she was still good to go. Snyth body parts and biotics what a hell of a combination. Even without the synthetic replacements being a biotic Shepard like all biotics had a very high metabolism rate which meant their bodies broke down alcohol very quickly. It was rare for any biotic to wake up with a hangover though not impossible but rare. It wasn't hard for a biotic to become drunk it was simply hard for them to stay that way. When you had synthetic body parts especially those that centered on most internal organs including the digestive system well…staying drunk was nearly impossible. Shepard could drink a krogan battlemaster under the table and still kill a thresher maw on foot not an hour after.

ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME

Morning came with an announcement. *Commander, the Reaper IFF is online we but will need a few hours to fully integrated with _Normandy's_ systems. I suggest your next mission be via shuttle craft.*

"Understood EDI. Thank you. Inform the rest of the team. I want the _Normandy_ fully ready. There are a few Cerberus outposts close to the Omega Nebula that can be reached via shuttle. Have the crew assemble in the shuttle bay and there is still that stockpile of eezo Aria gave us the location of."

The stockpiles once belonged to Essul a batarian warlord who had terrorized the Terminus Systems. After given the location and where they came from or rather who they came from Shepard had read up on the man.

Essul had made an attempt to unite a pirate army under his banner, indeed he had successful conducted a rapid blitz against eleven habitable planets. Fortunately for the rest of the galaxy, Essul's crimes caught the attention of the Spectres who deduced his hidden location and assassinated him. Essul's empire built on hyperextend army, soon came crashing down. His lost stockpiles of element zero have become something of a legend, and foolish spaces have spent countless amounts to time and money searching the Batalla system, convinced they will be the ones to finally strike it rich.

Aria possessed the information all along and passed it to Shepard for services rendered, one for telling her that the three major merc guilds once united to take up the bounty against Shepard were gunning for Arian next. The second was to keep the Pirate Queen's pet krogan the former ruler of Omega alive. There was a moment where Shepard had toyed with the idea of being The Patriarch's krant but gave that notion up as soon as she heard him talking about killing the innocent just to incite the enemy to act in haste and with irrationality. That was too close to what had happened with Liara and Secura. Let the old shellback remained leached to Aria's throne, even if her throne was a couch with strippers in attendance rather than courtiers.

Following Aria's coordinates was a simple enough matter, and easy enough to get there by shuttle. Half the team could go there pick up the much needed eezo while the other half strikes the outlining Cerberus bases. A base Miranda said had been established to keep eyes on Omega. Blinding this base would be a significant blow against the Illusive Man.

Despite the fact Miranda had said she no longer wished to serve Cerberus agenda she'd not be put to the test by neutralizing the base, but Jack…Jack would jump at the chance to hit Cerberus in the daddy-bags. The base Shepard would take with her Jack of course, Grunt, Zaeed, Thane and Samara. Goring for the cache would be Garrus, Tali, Mordin, Miranda, Legion and of course the best thief in the galaxy—Kasumi.

*Understood, Commander. I will relay your orders.*

Shepard checked the clock on her desk—she had just enough time to jump into the shower, scrub off, grab something to eat and gear up before meeting with her flagship team in the shuttle bay. Nothing like an early morning mission to shift last nights cobwebs. Quiet moments were hard to come by especially on the _Normandy_.


	18. What The Shit

Chapter 18: What The Shit

The unusual instability in the other systems EDI mentioned had the rest of the Engineering crew working double time, each scan, each calibration was checked and rechecked. Danilles and Donnelly were pushing every test they could think of and more taken from Tali's Great Book of Engineering. If anyone knew the ins and outs of complete mass effect cores and ships engines it was the quarians. Their whole lives centered on not only maintaining their ships but often doing complete overhauls and integrating ship parts from totally alien systems and making them function as a cohesive whole.

On the Bridge Joker was going through his own scans. He pushed several windows on the amber guai interface of the helm whilst shaking his head. "I'm telling you EDI your readings are off. It's a radiation leak, just white noise."

"I have detected a signal embedded in the static." The AI was incessantly argumentative. "We are transmitting the _Normandy's_ location."

Joker frowned. This wasn't good. "Transmitting? To whom?" For a second all Joker could do was to stare at the blue and white shimmering feminized holo image of EDI

"The collectors." The answer was straight forward and even. Joker opened his mouth to say something when the _Normandy_ shuddered suddenly. Then there it was, the massive ship (that always reminded Joker of a giant space turd) dropping out of FTL almost on top of them.

"Shit!" Joker's hands were a flurry of motion over the helm. "I'm getting us out of here!"

EDI auto activated red alert at the same time almost prosaically announcing "The propulsion system is off line. I am detecting a virus in the ship's computers."

The ship erupted into action, the entire crew on every decks scrambled to action stations, going for the weapon lockers, slamming M-8 Avenger Assault rifles into the hands of the troopers. M-6 Carnifax hand cannons into the hands of the crew that had the minimal of field training. Marines positioned themselves at every blast doors waiting for the inevitable boarding party.

Urz positioned himself between Kelly and the danger. Red Mane- Giver of Treats was his mistress's pack-mate and she always gave him treats. He liked the treats. He had to protect her. It wasn't just the treats. Mistress made her a pack-mate.

On the bridge Joker was still trying to evade the collector's turd ship. He all but snapped at the hologram, "From the IFF?! Damn it EDI! Why didn't you scrub it!?"

EDI didn't answer that question but continued her grocery list of faulty systems. "Primary weapons systems are off line. We can save the _Normandy_ Mr. Monroe, but you must help me."

The ship rocked as if something had hit it hard. Docking clamps…had to be. Joker looked over his shoulder but the blast door between the _Normandy's_ Bridge and the CIC had automatically slammed shut and locked. He was only able to look down the long 'neck' with its blinking amber running lights and nothing more.

"Give me the ship." EDI said.

"WHAT? You're crazy!" Joker's voice cracked. "You start singing _Daisy Bell_ and I'm done."

"Unlock my sealed data base and I can initiate counter measures." EDI insisted, ignoring the obvious plug to rise to the bait. "The maintenance shaft in the science lab will allow you passage to the AI core."

Joker's fingers danced over the interface, there was literally nothing he could do here save for locking the helm controls. Pushing his brittle boned body out of the ergonomically designed chair took more effort than it would have a fully physically able bodied person and longer. It was time he did not have.

He looked down the long neck that separated the Bridge from the CIC and thought there was no way his glass bones would allow him to run. The amber lights had now converged into a single line of flashing red. To Joker it may as well have been blood red because it was going to be his soon enough decorating the hallway.

"The main passages are no longer safe." EDI said as if reading or perhaps a better more accurate term was 'scanning' his brain. "The collectors have boarded, Mr. Monroe. The emergency lighting will guide you." She sounded worried-and that worried Joker.

Joker looked at the long glowing line. "God damn it!" He moved a swiftly as possible, favoring his right side, as he always did. It was eerie how the CIC looked with the crew gone. Near the galaxy map there was a body. At first he thought it was Kelly….but the woman had black hair not ginger.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit." Still on the far side of the room Joker hobbled towards 'Mordin's Hangout'. He drew around the oblong galaxy map saw Kelly (thank god she's still alive his hind brain blurted) and two of the marines and always seemed to share the same shift guarding the CIC. Miller and Jackson. Then there was Urz. The varren's throat burbled in a deep growl that erupted past the slathering jaws filled with razor sharp stiletto like teeth. Every muscle quivering in the anticipation to strike his prey.

It all happened so quickly. The lift doors opened. From within was a high pitched screech, causing Joker to spin his head around at the thing the made it. Close up the creature was nothing short of a monster. Its mouth filled with the screaming severed human heads of its victims.

"What the hell is that!?" Joker choked out. He had heard Shepard and the other share horror stories of the new husks, abominations that went all kamikaze when they got close to their targets, the buggy collector drones, guardians and assassins that Harbinger notoriously seized control over. But in those stories the worst were the biotic scions, and there was the mutant monster crabs from hell. Mordin called them praetorians. To see one up close…

SHIT!

Mordin's fancy word didn't half cover describe what that…that thing was. Mutant monster crabs from hell just about did.

"Go Joker, we'll hold out as long as we can!" Miller shouted. He got off one round before the monster crab from hell pounced on him. Urz charged the monster going for the crustacean-bug's pincer leg. The force of impact and the sheer power of veran jaw-lock was enough to tear the spindly limb off the mutant monster crab from hell.

The praetorian bellowed in rage and pain. Ebony blood splattered the floors, the monster and Urz as if someone had dropped an open can on of oozing black paint. Its clawed arm stabbed down reaching frantically at the fishdog still tearing its carapace. Cruel pincers grabbed Urz around the middle and squeezed.

Urz let-out one pitiful high-pitched cry as his spine had been snapped in two. The now limp body was cast aside towards the armory doors were it bounced of the bulkhead once, and with a sickening onomatopoeic flibflab-skaplate flopped to the floor. Kelly's scream snapped Joker's attention off the dead veran back to the yeomen struggling to free herself from the Mutant monster crab from hell's grip. She never even fired off a shot from her sidearm.

….Shit!

"KELLY!"

"Help me!" she screamed the panic in her voice thick and clotted.

Joker didn't even have a gun. He couldn't help her. Bile rose in his throat realizing she was going to end up just like poor Urz…Fear oozed into every pore

SHIT! SHIT! WHAT THE SHIT?

Jackson was still alive. He was firing as many shots from his M-8 Avenger as he could. The sound of the assault rifle's constant fire snapped the pilot's attention back to moment.

"Hurry Joker! Go!" The man shouted then cried out as the monster-mutant-crab thing jumped him.

It all happened in the span of three heartbeats, enough time for Joker to bear witness to Jackson's assault and capture before the doors of the science lab closed behind him. Jackson's screams of terror and pain filled Joker's ears living there along side Kelly's terror and Urz's death cry.

"Shit!" Joker cursed his fragile body for the hundredth time since he made this agonizingly slow- frantic dash to the lab. He just about neared the access hatch to the crawlspace when outside one of the port windows that overlooked engineering was another one of the mutant monster crabs from hell.

'Windows are structural weakness' Legions voice suddenly and unwantingly echoed in Joker's hindbrain.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" But he made it, got down the ladder just before the mutant monster crab from hell burst into science lab. Unlike others who could support their own weight as they slid down the rails of the ladder, Joker had to climb one torturous rung after torturous rung.

Shit! Shit! Shit! The length between the two decks was impossibly long. He felt at least three of his fingers snap and …there…goes a toe….AHUGH…yep that was a rib…all micro factures…but fuck it hurt. Once he touched foot at the bottom of the rail he activated his Omni tool and filled his body with medi-gel.

He exited near the port side observation deck's storage area. He had only a slight moment to catch his breath before he hobbled forward.

"Multiple hostiles detected throughout the crew deck." EDI piped up.

"Tell me something I don't know." Joker quipped rounding the bulk head that separated the lift from the mess hall.

"Joker! This deck is crawling with those things." Corporal Colt echoed EDI's announcement. "Stay close, I'll protect you." that being said Colt sprinted ahead like the animal he shared a name with, forgetting that Joker was already at top speed.

More screams. Crew members were snatched away by monsters with bulbous heads and with what looked like gatling guns grafted to their left arms. If that weren't bad enough they were glowing with the ever familiar blue glow of dark energy.

Shit shit shit. They were fucking biotics! Shit! Shit…Shit! One mass effect sneeze from one of those gatling-bubble-headed glowing fuckers and he was finished.

There were at least three of the gatling-bubble-headed glowing fuckers near the XO's, quarters and there were two more in the mess hall. Colt was engaging shots with one of them letting Joker hobble as swiftly as possible into the Medbay. The whole room was in disarray Files were thrown about as if Dr. Chakwas tried to hurl as many of her three ring binder files at the gatling-bubble-headed glowing fuckers before they snatched her.

"Main fusion plant off line." EDI announced. "Activating emergency fuel cells."

"What the shit!" When the hell did the med bay get sooo fucking long? First bed…second…third…AI Core! He opened the door, slipped though and sealed the door behind him.

"Alright I'm at the aah…you." Joker announced giving a look around him, waiting for the collectors to pounce on him, waiting for EDI to start singing Daisy Bell.

Popping up in her holographic avatar from behind him EDI spoke: "Connect the core to _Normandy's_ Primary Control Module."

"Great this is where it starts." Joker mumbled dejectedly but otherwise complying. "We're just all organic batteries and guess who gets the blame." he deepened his voice in some conjured admiral's voice. "This is all Joker's fault. What a tool he was. I have to spend all day computing Pi because he plugged in the Overlord."

As soon as he was finished the eight and half inch holographic 'woman' disappeared in a azure bitmap flash. Then the room when utterly black He heard the strange binary sounds of Normandy's computers all jabbering at once. In the next moment the chittering-clacking sounds dissipated and the lights came back on

"I have access to defensive systems. Thank you Mr. Monroe."

Was it his imagination or was there more emotional inflection in EDI's words?

He looked around him but stopped scanning the room for the Overlord when EDI's glowing white and blue hologram appeared before him. Right about now he was more grateful than before that Tali had by Shepards orders replaced the eyeball talking vagina with that of something that looked like the human version of the Citadel's Avina VI.

"Now you must activate the primary drive in Engineering."

Joker grimaced. "Augh…you want me to go crawling through the ducts again"

Deadpanned EDI responded with "I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees."

The grimace turned into a full out scowl and not little bit of underlying horror.

"That is a joke." EDI swiftly explained.

"Right." Joker wasn't buying it.

"The shaft behind you connects to the Engineering Deck. Good Luck." There was genuine warmth in the last two words. Wasn't there?

He looked behind him, sighed and started yet another crawl down the long shaft that separated the crew deck from engineering. If anything this climb seemed longer than the last. The medi-gel might have stabilized some of the micro-fractures his last venture down the ladders had cost him. Now he had more to add to the list.

The ladder ended about five feet from the ground. Joker looked down and winced. The ladder would have gone all the way to the deck but Jack had removed the last tier. Shepard hadn't too pleased with it but she allowed it. After all you had to treat a psychotic biotic with kid gloves and if that meant giving into a small concession of removing a section of a ladder then so be it. Besides the stacked shipping crates provided enough of a boost the missing five feet didn't matter-unless you suffered from brittle-bone disease.

Joker closed his eyes tight, stealing himself for the snap-crack of broken bone and the inevitable pain that came with it. Looking down studying the best option to drop that would leave most of his bones intact. He thought he had it when Miss Budinski piped up again.

"Hostiles are present in Engineering!" EDI said. Where there was once a ghost of warmth in the mechanical voice there now seemed to be genuine worry. "They are heading towards the Cargo Bay."

"Got it." Joker bit out just as he landed on the crate Jack used as a table.

 **SNAP!**

That was his left ankle-thankfully it wasn't massive break. Oh and that was another toe…And his two more finger fractures as he tried to study himself as he landed. Climbing down off the crates **CRACK!** There went another rib.

He fractured his thumb again as he activated the Omni-tool's medi-gel injectors. Pain relief drugs filled his systems as the gel went to work to stabilize recent injuries.

Through the ship the echoes of collector screeches and crew screams and gun fire ricocheted within Joker's ears. He'd never get rid of that sound.

He was about to mount the second set of stairs when he saw one of the shadows of the gatling-bubble-headed glowing fuckers looming above him. He hissed air through his teeth and held his breath waiting for the shadow to pass over. He climbed one flight and paused, turned and watched as two of the gatling-bubble-headed glowing fuckers passed through the hall between them were those strange cocoons Shepard told him about, the ones they found on Horizon and millions of them on the collector ship. Inside were his fellow crew members and friends.

"Engineering is clear of hostiles. Proceed immediately to minimize chances of detection." EDI ordered. Right now it was so hard to hear the VI mechanized voice past his heart beat pounding relentlessly in his eardrums.

Hobbling Joker reached the station he knew belonged to Tali. "Activate the drive and I will open the air locks as we accelerate. All hostiles will be killed."

"What?!" fucking machine. He knew…he knew releasing the AI was a mistake… "What about the crew?!" he snarled.

"They are gone Jeff." EDI's voice held the same warmth it had moments ago. Joker wasn't imagining it this time. It was definitely there. She never used his first name…never… "The collectors took them."

Joker shook his head, his eyes closed. The there was no time to pause, to be pissed to be lamentative. "Shit…" His pause wasn't leisurely nor was it as frantically hurried as it once was as the pilot made his way to the Normandy's massive drive core.

"I am sealing Engine Room Two," EDI said.

Joker nodded and issued the command that would hand over the entire ship to EDI. It less time it takes to inhale air. EDI stated: "I have control."

The mass effect core hummed loudly, the power brilliant—blinding and in a shot without warning the Normandy bulked and shot into FTL. The force of the sudden acceleration knocked Joker back on to his ass, he felt several small bones fracture as he landed on the deck plating.

How long did he stay there? He didn't know but his whole body ached.

"Purge is complete. No other life forms on board. Securing airlocks on Cargo Bay doors."

It took Joker a full three minutes to rise to his feet, a moment longer to find his thoughts. "Send a message to Shepard's shuttle. Tell her what happened." he wandered to the core drive control panel and felt the weight of everything that had just happened come crashing down on him. He leaned forward taking the weight of his head in his hands as he scrubbed his face with his finger tips.

"Message away." EDI declared. "Are you feeling alright Jeff?" there was that concern again. There was no mistaking it.

Rising up, Joker shook his head and limped back towards the doors of Engineering. "No. But thanks for asking."

He was quiet as he wandered back to medbay. Grabbed a few packs of medigel and started to dose himself. It'd have to do until he got real help. Thankfully Mordin was still around. The old salarian might be half mad scientist but he knew medicine nearly as well perhaps even better than Chakwas. Once he got back the old doc could do more than this quick patch job.

Shit Shit shit…the last thing Shepard said to him before she left on her little side mission was that the Normandy was his and he should take care of her.

Great frigging start of his first day as temp XO. Lost the crew nearly lost the ship and he unleashed a friggin Cerberus AI….

"Let me know when Shepard gets back." He murmured into the air before taking to one of the beds. His body was screaming out in pain. He had no idea how many micro fractures he had but best let the medigel work its marvels.

What seemed like only seconds passing Joker was a little more than surprised to discover it had been at least two and a half hours before Shepard and the rest of the flagship team made it back to the _Normandy_.

Groggy from pain and stress Joker made his way to the CIC deck, He knew his CO. the Commander would want to take this meeting in the war room. He needed to sit down, but there were no chairs. Shepard liked to hold her meetings standing up around the briefing table. It prevented people from becoming too relaxed, made to stand the crew had to pay rapt attention. Shepard said it made people more honest if they had to remain on their feet.

But right now Joker didn't care, his spine was still bitching at him for landing on it after the sudden acceleration and jump to FLT. So he used what remaining strength he had and hoisted himself upon to the tabletop and sat down. Next to him in her eight and a half inch tall holograph as a very concerned looking EDI.

No sooner was he seated with his hands clasped together in a pseudo prayer that Shepard and Garrus entered the war room. She said noting to him but only paced back and forth. Saying nothing. That made it worse. Garrus folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the bulkhead facing the door.

A moment later Miranda burst in. Despite the fact Garrus was the XO it was Lawson that spoke. "Everyone!? You lost everyone? And damned near lost the ship too?"

"I know alright?" Joke shot back defensively. "I was here."

"It's not his fault Miranda." Garrus defended the pilot. "None of us caught it."

"Mr. Vakarian is correct. The harmful data in the collector drive was even more sophisticated hack than the black box Reaper virus I was given." EDI piped up—also on the defensive.

"I heard it was a rough ride." Shepard said in her most genteel manner. "How are you holding up?"

Joker paused. "There's a lot of empty chairs in here." He said meaning the _Normandy_ as a whole not the war room.

"We did everything we could, Jeff." EDI said comfortingly. Was it just everyone's imagination or did her holomatrix just grow an inch in and half. From the very tone of her voice if she could have reached out and actually physically touch Joker on the shoulder she most certainly would have.

"Yeah…thanks…Mom." Joker's voice was still defeated.

Shepard looked to the AI. "Is the ship clean? We can't risk this happening again."

Joker looked to the Spectre. "EDI and I purged the systems. The Reaper IFF is on line and you can go through the Omega Four relay whenever you want."

Miranda own arms were crossed over her chest where as Garrus stance had been one of relaxed reposes Lawson's was defiant. "Don't even get me started on unshackling a damned AI.

"Well what can I do against collectors?" Joker snapped. "Break my arm at them?" he fierce contorted into an expression of anger. "EDI cleared the ship." He hopped down off the table, wincing as he felt his bones twitch at the landing no matter how soft. "She's alright."

"I assure you, I am still bound by protocols in my programming. Even if I were not, you are my crewmates."

Shepard took a breath before going on to say: "EDI's had plenty of opportunities to kill us, we need all the help we can get."

"Sounds like everything we need to rescue the crew." Garrus stated.

Miranda nodded. "We've done everything we can. Its time to take the fight to the collectors."

"I'll give the orders soon. Get to your stations and prepare for general quarters."

"Great here we go again/" Joker shook his head. "Hit the map whenever you're ready Commander." Joker's voce was dejected.

The rest was silence.


End file.
